How do parliamentary committees process complex data about policy performance? The evolving nature of European Parliament’s scrutiny of audit findings from the European Court of Auditors

In its work scrutinising EU policy performance, the European Parliament (EP) makes wide use of European Court of Auditors’ performance audits (special reports), alongside the financial and compliance audit findings that feed into deliberations leading to budgetary discharge. These crucial inputs into deliberative processes of parliamentary oversight enable committees to monitor how policies financed by the EU budget fared in practice. Effective scrutiny is fundamental for the throughput legitimacy of EU policy and law making. Traditionally the EP’s Budgetary Control Committee (CONT) has scrutinised ECA reports across all policy domains. However, during the eighth and ninth legislatures (2014-2024), direct contact was forged between the EP’s standing committees and ECA with audit findings presented beyond CONT. This development has not been without internal political frictions over committee mandates but appears to have enabled committees and their MEPs to gain a more retrospective perspective on EU policy performance. Arguably, greater engagement and understanding of budgetary control helps the EP as co-legislator deliver improved regulation and better designed policy instruments. Building on initial research published in the JLS in 2024, exploring the evolving nature of EP-ECA committee relations and institutionalisation of new scrutiny arrangements, this new research engages with the EP committees and their chairs through a series of interviews, to explore the nature of engagement with the ECA, how committees deliberated audit data and findings, and the degree to which this new inter-interinstitutional engagement has led to learning. Who has learnt and what has been learned over the last decade, and how this has brought new knowledge to better ensure democratic and financial accountability?