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«WHAT I HAVE GIVEN IS FOR OTHERS TO JUDGE, BUT I HOPE MY
CONTRIBUTIONS WERE USEFUL»
By Rosmarie Carotti
Interview with Mrs Petruškevičienė, Lithuanian Member of the Court,
whose mandate expires on May 6, 2010
Mrs Mrs Petruškevičienė, Lithuanian Member of the Court
R. C.: Mrs Petruškevičienė, you are the Lithuanian Member of the Court and your
mandate expires on 6 May 2010. Can you strike the balance of your mandate?
Irena Petruškevičienė: When I presented myself to the staff of the Court after my arrival in
May 2004, I said that my intention was to give and to take. I can certainly say that I have greatly
benefited from this experience of working for six years at the Court. What I have given is for
others to judge, but I hope that my contributions were useful. I have always pursued the attitude
that the highest priority must be given to professional standards and most importantly, to an
auditor’s independence.
I started in Group IV as rapporteur in charge of so-called non traditional own resources, later
took over responsibility for administrative expenditure and finally was elected Dean of Group IV
at the end of 2008. I have participated in the CEAD Group, and in the Internal Audit Committee
as Member and as Chairman. I have contributed Chapters of the Annual Report, Special Reports
and Opinions, and discussed the reports of others.
R. C.: Which were the most important messages you could deliver through the audit
reports you have signed?
Irena Petruškevičienė:I hope I could demonstrate through my work in relation to own
resources which are based on VAT- and GNI-data that this is a field which is certainly technically
complicated and very difficult to explain to non-experts, but at the same time highly relevant.
I think we were on the right track when we carried out audits at National Statistical Offices in
Member States and concluded in our Annual Reports 2004 and 2005 that significant differences
existed in respect of their supervisory and control systems for the compilation of national
accounts. Recent press headlines concerning the reliability of Member States’ national accounts
figures have confirmed this in a rather dramatic manner and one can only welcome the proposal
by the Commission to examine these figures more closely than in the past.
R. C.:I remember your Special Report on Administrative Cooperation in the field of VAT.
Irena Petruškevičienė: The main purpose of this audit was to verify whether Member States
cooperate efficiently between each other and with the Commission to prevent or at least to
reduce the amount of VAT income lost through irregularities and fraud, and in particular through
the so-called carousel fraud. This report N° 8/2007, published in December 2007, attracted a
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WHAT I HAVE GIVEN IS FOR OTHERS TO JUDGE, BUT I HOPE MY CONTRIBUTIONS WERE USEFUL
lot of attention from the media and was highly appreciated by the European Parliament. Our
main messages were that, in order to combat intra-Community VAT fraud successfully, higher
priority needs to be given by Member States to operational information exchanges, for example
through more direct communication between local inspection staff, and that the timescale for
collecting and capturing VAT data should be radically shortened. Since we published our report,
VAT legislation has been amended so as to speed up information exchanges.
R. C.: Concerning this audit you also were faced with many problems. For the first time,
the Court had to defend its powers to audit and to ask the Commission as the guardian of
the Treaty to act on its behalf. Now the case is in Court.
Irena Petruškevičienė: With this report, we encountered unexpected difficulties; our audit
powers were challenged by a Member State. What happened here is without precedent in the
history of the Court. Germany was in fact the only Member State that questioned our right to
conduct this audit. The United Kingdom, Italy, Slovenia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, France,
and Poland all fully cooperated with us. We could not take Germany directly to the Court of
Justice of the European Union, because, under the Treaty, it is only the Commission that has the
power to bring such action against a Member State. We hope that the case will now result in a
clarification of our role in this field as soon as possible. It is also a matter of principle; we have to
show that we do not accept any attempt to limit our audit powers.
R. C.:It would be interesting to better understand the role of VAT in the EU budget. The
percentage of VAT which goes to the EU-budget is quite small and the risks consequently,
too. Why then so much attention to it?
Irena Petruškevičienė:The emphasis is on combating fraud and evasion, but also on fair
competition within the internal market. Where VAT evasion is easy, fraudulent companies have a
two-fold benefit. They gain by not paying taxes and they gain by having an unjustified advantage
over companies which comply with the tax laws. For the EU budget, reductions in the VAT own
resource have to be compensated by an increase in the gross national income (GNI) own resource
from all other Member States and thus distortions caused by VAT fraud affect the overall balance
of the own resources system. In other words, if the anti-fraud arrangements in a Member State
are weak, all Member States will pay for it through increased GNI contributions.
R. C.: Then, you were responsible for the special report N° 9/2009 on the efficiency and
effectiveness of the personnel selection activities carried out by EPSO.
Irena Petruškevičienė:This report attracted a lot of attention both in the European Parliament
and in the Council, and I think it could make a contribution to the reform of the selection procedures
which is currently being implemented by EPSO to improve and speed up the selection process.
The reform of the selection of staff is an interesting subject and I myself did not expect such great
interest in it by the media and two Committees of the European Parliament, namely the COCOBU
and the Legal Affairs Committee. The latter, wanting to look deeper into the reform from a legal
point of view, took our report as a starting point.
R. C.:During your mandate, methodologies have changed in the Court. Can you tell us
about your involvement in the DAS Assurance Model and Approach?
Irena Petruškevičienė:I was one of the three Members who prepared the proposal for the
Court’s current DAS Assurance Model. I think this provides a solid basis for the DAS, which is and
will certainly continue to be the Court’s most important product. During the Court’s seminar in
Cyprus, I presented ideas and proposals on how to develop our DAS approach further, which
however, and this is very important, will not create expectations that cannot be satisfied, given
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WHAT I HAVE GIVEN IS FOR OTHERS TO JUDGE, BUT I HOPE MY CONTRIBUTIONS WERE USEFUL
the limited resources available to the Court. I hope some of these ideas will still find their way
into the proposals which the Court is going to debate later this year when I will have already left.
Let me just mention the option of a rotation approach. This would allow the Court to look indepth at selected policy areas every year and thus provide a more comprehensive and detailed
analysis of problems and possible remedies. The current simplification through the use of “traffic
lights” entails the risk that the debate about the Court’s annual report turns into a rather sterile
exercise.
R. C.:How would you resume your experience in the Court? Do you have some suggestions
for the Court's work?
Irena Petruškevičienė:There are many good and positive things in the Court and our work is
definitely important. It is not all about the reports or opinions that we publish. What people tend
to forget is that we also have a lot of what I would call “invisible impact” through the dialogue
with our auditees. The weakness as I see it concerns the internal procedures, which are often
heavy and long, and tend to get ever more complex, judged on the basis of my experience over
the last six years. When we discuss new procedures, for example concerning the annual report,
I always make the point: let's first clarify what we have now, who is reviewing what and who is
responsible for what.
I hope that the Court will fully exploit the possibilities which will now open up with the move to a
Chamber system. This move brings about some decentralisation in the decision-making process.
It can therefore be an excellent tool to promote creativity and diversity in the Court’s work.
European Institutions should also constantly strive to be more open in order to avoid the risk
of being disconnected from real life. For the Court, this means of course in the first place that it
needs to be open to new developments in the audit profession.
R. C.:During your mandate, has there been a change in how the EU is perceived in your
country, by the institutions and by the people?
Irena Petruškevičienė:In general, Lithuania was and remains a very pro-European country.
Opinion polls confirm this, even against the background of the current economic crisis. As far
as the Court is concerned and from my experience in presenting our work year after year to the
competent committees of the Seimas, our national parliament, and to other national institutions,
I can say that the Court enjoys a very good reputation.
R. C.: What could you personally do to improve the relations? You had very important
guests coming from Lithuania to the ECA.
Irena Petruškevičienė:The relations were always good, but I attempted to foster even closer
ties. In this vein, I participated in several conferences. Each year, I presented the Court's Annual
Report and while doing so, I also presented a few important topics that were being discussed at
EU level. I received guests from the Lithuanian Parliament, from the Ministry of Finance, and from
the National Audit Institution, as well as a delegation of judges.
R. C.:Do you know your successor, Mrs Budbergytė?
Irena Petruškevičienė:Very well. We met for the first time when she was appointed as Auditor
General in Lithuania in 2005 and we then quickly became good colleagues and friends. The
Lithuanian National Audit Office regularly participated in working groups led by the ECA. They
were very much interested in our products and approach and, at least once a year, we used to have
a very good meeting not only with the Auditor General but also with the Heads of Department
to discuss and exchange views and share experiences.
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