Court of Auditors, what are the powers of the judges and how do the rules of investment inspections change? – Corriere.it

1) What are the powers of the Court of Auditors?
Article 103 of the Constitution gives the Court jurisdiction in matters of public accounting, civil, military and war pensions. The Court is competent to judge accountants, administrators and public officials on matters relating to the management of public money.

2) What does the government want to do?
With an amendment to the PA decree presented in the House commission, the government proposed in the Labor and Constitutional Affairs commissions a one-year extension (from 30 June 2023 to 30 June 2024) of the so-called tax shield which limits the possibility of contesting the tax damage only to some relevant cases and proposed the exclusion of the Court of Auditors from the concurrent control over the Pnrr.

4) What is concurrent control?
The amendment on concurrent control would remove the Plan from ongoing scrutiny by the Court of Auditors which could therefore not fully assess the goodness of the expenditure of the funds of the Pnrr. Concomitant control can be requested by the Parliamentary Commissions and its objective, as they explain on the Chamber website, is to intervene on an ongoing basis during the implementation of a plan, program or project, exercising an accelerating and propulsive action of the administrative and ensuring, at the same time, the correct use of the resources assigned to public management.

5) Why are the oppositions protesting?
According to Pd and M5S, this is a shameful provision because it intends to deprive the Court of control and verification of the use of resources of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. It is unacceptable because it deprives the House and the Senate, i.e. Parliament, of the possibility of asking the Court to verify, through a report, the progress of the projects. We are facing an alteration of the balance of powers and a reduction of parliamentary prerogatives which is not bearable.