Posted on 24 November 2017
“When I started digging, I saw that the European Development Fund (EDF) was the only instrument that has its own budget despite being established almost at the beginning of the European Community. I thought that was an interesting issue as this instrument had a big impact and was so steady during the years, while its audit was not included in the annual audit report of the European Union,” says Andreea Hancu Budui, the winner of the 2017 research grant on European Public Finances.
Hancu Budui, Master’s student at the University of Valencia, was at the Historical Archives of the European Union to do her research on the evolution and auditing of the European Development Fund using the archival documents from the European Court of Auditors from the time period between 1977 and 1992.
When she first heard that she had received the grant, she couldn’t believe it. She says: “To be able to be here and work in this environment is wonderful. I also love the fact that this is a collective memory of the European Union. Knowing that here [at the Archives] you can find most of the work that was ever produced by any European institution is humbling.”
Before coming to Florence, she spent some time at the European Court of Auditor’s Library, in order to gain insight into the more recent activities of the Court from the last 20 years. But she says the Archives can provide something unique: access to the work programs of the Court.
“It is a big help for me being here, because there are some documents here that normally nobody can access. The work products of the Audits, everything to do with Audits is usually confidential. Here I have the opportunity to compare the work programme with the report of the outcome.”
Her time at the archives gave her valuable insights into the evolution of the European Court of Auditors’ work. According to her, the most interesting discovery has been seeing how the European Court of Auditors evolved once norms and a professional working framework were introduced.
“When the international audit norms were established at the beginning of the 90s, during the time of the Maastricht Treaty and the implementation of the déclaration d'assurance, from that point onwards, everything becomes very organised and they are following a path. But in the first 15 years, you couldn’t understand the planning behind their auditing,” she explains.
After completing her research, she hopes that it will be published in the ECA journal, as it is a unique topic and little research has been done on the EDF audit. Although, she is currently planning to go back to work in the private sector, she has joined previous ECA grant winners in a research network that she hopes will keep her involved in academia.