Revista do Tribunal de Contas

COURT OF AUDITORS MAGAZINE
Issue No. 8, July – December 2024

OPENING NOTE

With issue 8 of the Court of Auditors Magazine in digital format, we close the third year of the Magazine in this format. The same team has ensured the regularity and timeliness of editing this publication.

In this first issue published under my mandate, I am pleased to note the Magazine's relevance as a space for all those who, in the field of financial jurisdiction and related areas, want to see their theses and ideas published and promote a fruitful debate.

COURT OF AUDITORS OF PORTUGAL AND EUROPEAN COURT OF AUDITORS IN THE HOLISTIC CONTROL OF GOOD PUBLIC FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT
Carlos C. Proença

1. Introduction; 2. Good public financial management: indeterminate concept and legal principle; 3. The duty of good public financial management; 3.1. Subjective scope: who is responsible for the duty of good public financial management; 3.2. Content of the duty of good public financial management; 3.2.1. Objective dimensions: pursuing public interest, considering intergenerational equity, and adopting best management practices. The role of recommendations from the Court of Auditors of Portugal and the European Court of Auditors; 3.2.2. Subjective dimensions: public service ethics, integrity, and accountability; 3.2.3. Ancillary duties related to the duty of good public financial management: special duties of diligence and prudence; 3.3. Object: the reality addressed by the duty of good public financial management; 3.4. Purpose: a duty oriented towards achieving results; 4. Evolution of the aims of external financial control over public financial management; 4.1. First phase: compliance control, split between compliance with legal, budgetary, accounting, and financial regularity; 4.2. Second phase: impact control, focused on economy, effectiveness, and efficiency, primarily of public expenditure; 5. Future perspectives on external financial control over good public financial management; 5.1. Monitoring compliance with ESG factors - corporate governance, environmental sustainability, and social responsibility - by good public financial management; 5.2. Expanding the classic three E's to five E's as the third phase of external financial control over public financial management and the second dimension of the inherent duty of good management; 5.3. The role of “law” in empowering Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) to monitor compliance with ESG factors; 5.4. Types of audits that monitor compliance with ESG factors; 6. Conclusion.

Read more
(full text in Portuguese)

THE DIGITAL EURO AND THE FINACIAL STABILITY
André Filipe Morais

This article studies the relation between the digital euro, as this new type of central bank currency is framed in the Proposal of the European Commission, and financial stability. In particular, it is performed an analysis of (i) the impact on the financial system stability that a digital euro available for retail payments may pose, (ii) which solutions the Commission’s Proposal sets forth to decrease such impact (holding limits and no remuneration), and, lastly, (iii) how such solutions do actually reflect the true nature of the threat to the stability of the financial system arising from the issuance and circulation of the digital euro, and if, following an acute assessment of the threats, such solutions are adequate.