During his visit, the President of the European Court of Auditors was accompanied by Janusz Wojciechowski, Polish Member of the ECA. The visit to the Supreme Audit Office of Poland (NIK) is the first official visit of President Klaus-Heiner Lehne in a EU Member State since he took the office on 1 October 2016. The collaboration between the ECA and NIK has a long history, and the two institutions have had numerous joint initiatives and developed very close relations.
NIK auditors assist ECA auditors during most of their audit missions in Poland. In addition, representatives of the ECA and NIK have jointly audited several issues and areas, such as eradication of animal diseases in Poland and the functioning of the JASPERS instrument. Thanks to trainings dedicated to the ECA audit methodology, organised at NIK almost every year, Polish institutions are better prepared for meeting the EU requirements while accounting for European subsidies and funds.
The main objective of the visit of Klaus-Heiner Lehne at NIK was to discuss the planned future joined initiatives. Both the ECA and NIK are involved in the audit of air quality (the so called smog audit) carried out under the auspices of the European Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions - EUROSAI, in which 14 other Supreme Audit Institutions are also engaged. The ECA and NIK attempt to optimise cooperation during this audit so that it is not a burden to the auditiees. President Lehne and President Kwiatkowski discussed several proposals aimed at making the audit approaches of the ECA and NIK consistent at each stage, from the audit preparations to the summary of audit results.
The President of the ECA also met the Council for Supporting Measures aimed at Protection of Animals established by President Kwiatkowski in 2015 as a consultative body whose role is to initiate and support measures aimed at improving animal welfare.
