Marton Baranyi | Experience Sharing | Carrying out a Peer Review
The European Court of Auditors (ECA) attaches great importance to peer reviews conducted by fellow supreme audit institutions (SAIs). Over the past two decades, the ECA has undergone five such reviews, and the most recent exercise (the peer review report has been published in May 2025) once again underlines the ECA’s commitment to continuous improvement and transparency.
Peer reviews bring significant added value to the ECA, given that they allow our institution to benchmark its practices against international standards and recognised good practice, thereby strengthening our professionalism and the quality of our audit work. At the same time, peer reviews also demonstrate the ECA’s accountability to its stakeholders and its openness to independent scrutiny. By voluntarily inviting external experts to assess its work, the ECA underscores its determination to lead by example in matters of good governance.
The scope of the ECA’s latest review was determined through an extensive process of internal discussions carried out at Court level. The ECA members’ aim was to identify areas of particular strategic relevance where external expertise could provide the greatest benefit. This “gap mapping” exercise allowed the Court to select a limited number of high-priority themes, topics that are both topical and critical for the ECA’s future development. In this way, the review was targeted towards areas where the perspectives of experienced peers could most effectively support further progress (the peer review focused on the following topics: how the ECA audits the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the ECA’s digital audit approach, and the ECA’s relations with its auditees).
The peer review is not an end in itself, but part of a continuous cycle of improvement. The ECA is currently in the process of carefully considering the findings and recommendations of the review and translating them into concrete implementing measures. These will be integrated into its strategic planning and operational practices over the coming years. By doing so, the ECA aims to ensure that the lessons drawn from the peer review are fully embedded in its work, reinforcing both its capacity to deliver high-quality audits and its role as the European Union’s independent external auditor.
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