House of Representatives: strengthen audit institutions’ position to audit banking supervision
On 13 February 2018, the Dutch House of Representatives voted in favour of a motion calling on the government to work in Europe to strengthen the positions of supreme audit institutions in the audit of banking supervision.
The motion was a response to a letter regarding a joint audit carried out by the Netherlands Court of Audit and other supreme audit institutions published on 14 December 2017. The audit found a growing audit gap in banking supervision in the eurozone. The Court of Audit’s letter to the House was based on an audit carried out by the audit institutions of five EU member states: the Netherlands, Germany, Cyprus, Finland and Austria. The audit had been preceded by another audit, published on 27 September 2017, on the supervision of banks in the Netherlands .
The motion was proposed by Bart Snels MP (GroenLinks) and read as follows:
That this House, having heard the deliberations, notes that several national audit institutions in the euro area have a limited mandate to audit the supervision of small and medium-sized banks, notes that national audit institutions are increasingly encountering restrictions on their access to data, in particular to information from the ECB, and further notes that the European Court of Audit has a limited mandate in respect of the ECB; whereas independent external audit of banking supervision by audit institutions is of great importance for confidence in the banking sector, calls on the government to actively promote in Europe the improvement of the mandates and information positions of audit institutions as an important issue in the completion of the banking union, and returns to the order of the day.