As Lider has already reported, the Croatian candidate for a position in the Court of Auditors, Neven Mates, did not receive the green light from the Budgetary Control Committee of the European Parliament on Monday, while the Romanian candidate George Pufan did receive that support, albeit narrowly with 14 votes in favor and 13 votes against.
The Committee’s opinion is not binding, and the final word will rest with all Members of Parliament at the plenary session next month, and the reasons for the rejection seem to be the poor impression that Mates left on the Committee. According to our information, the advisor at the Croatian National Bank did not go into enough detail, left an impression of insufficient competence, and expressed differing opinions from the Committee members on several points.
For example, Mates would refer to the National Declaration as a report, and there was disagreement over the error percentage in calculations, with his response being contrary to European subsidiarity policy. His admission that he does not have much experience with compliance audits and that he prefers performance audits did not impress either. It is also interesting that during the voting, not all committee members followed the agreement of the parliamentary group, explained the S&D group (Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the EP).
