COURT OF AUDITORS : COURT AIMS TO ADOPT 20 SPECIAL REPORTS IN 2007-2008.

The EU Court of Auditors plans to adopt twenty special reports between 2007 and 2008. The announcement was made by its President, Hubert Weber, during a presentation of the 2007 work programme at the end of February to the European Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control.

The Court does not have the capacity to audit each area in detail every year. It therefore selects its performance and compliance audit tasks in order to make the most effective use of its resources. A number of factors are taken into consideration, including the risks and amount of spending involved, the time since any previous audit, forthcoming developments in the regulatory or operational frameworks, and political or public interest.aThe Court needs to respond to changes in EU management and accounting, including the start of the new Financial Framework period 2007-2013,athe enlargement of the European Union with the accession of Bulgaria and Romania, and the consolidation of the introduction of accrual-based accounting from the 2005afinancial year.

The performance and compliance audit tasks selected for 2007 are the following:

- Agriculture: Special reports include a system of physical checks on export refund and the control and enforcement systems for conservation of fisheries resources.aNew or ongoing audit tasks include milk quotas in the new member states, penalties and sanctions in Common Agricultural Policy schemes, establishment of entitlements for the Single Payment Scheme and Single Area Payment Scheme, benchmarking IACS costs of control, the olive oil cultivation geographical information system, and export refunds on non-Annex I products.

- Cohesion: Special reports include a mid-term evaluation of the major projects funded by the Regional and Cohesion Funds, the management of the EU Solidarity Fund, ...