Andorra la VellaThe examination and voting of the liquidations of the accounts of the General Council, of the bodies that are linked to it, of the Constitutional Court, of the general administration, of the parapublic entities, of public law and other bodies, as well as of the participating public companies for the general administration, corresponding to the 2022 financial year, has again put on the table the opposition’s request that the Court of Auditors be given the necessary tools to be able to “sanction public entities” that break the law This has been emphasized by the social democratic general councilor Pere Baró, who has regretted that citizens are being asked to fulfill certain obligations and, on the other hand, public entities are not fulfilling theirs. In this sense, he has claimed before the parliamentary chamber that there is a commitment to carry out the necessary legislative changes to make it possible for the supervisory body of the accounts to carry out this supervision and sanction. He also regretted that the State Agency for the Resolution of Banking Institutions (AREB) to hand over the accounts of BPA, a demand, he reiterated, was already made last term without success.
The president of the Concordia parliamentary group, Cerni Escalé, has also been particularly critical of the fact that these 2022 settlements will now be approved in 2024, recalling that “in the 23 years of the Court of Auditors’ existence, it has not been never able to audit” the accounts within the terms established by law. Thus, he has stated that these accounts should have been approved in November 2023. And as for the executions, he has regretted that the Government “executed less than 50% of the real investments planned” and that thus Andorra becomes “the “state of Europe that looks less in the long term, does not try to solve the issues of tomorrow”. With regard to non-compliance, it has joined the criticisms of the PS regarding BPA accounts and certain issues such as budget monitoring, joint signatures, or direct hiring.
Both the parliamentary majority and the Government have responded to the criticisms of the opposition. Thus, the president of the democratic parliamentary group, Jordi Jordana, has remarked that it is not true that the AREB does not comply with the law, since it has a special regime that applies above the general regime and that the Court of Auditors does not can interfere with AREB’s administrative powers. In this sense, he has asked the councilors if what is wanted is for private entities and private funds to be audited and has replied that “it is not a question of opacity” but of knowing which model of auditing is wanted.
From the majority, the democratic councilor Meritxell López has defended that over the years there has been a constant “decrease” in non-compliance and has given as an example the program that the Government made available to sixteen public law entities for the control of financial and budget management to respond to the Court of Auditors’ comments on the fact that certain bodies did not have mechanisms for monitoring budget execution.
And in the specific case of Andorra Research and Innovation, whose accounts cannot be approved, López wanted to point out that it is because it counted among its assets the Prat de la Farga land, owned by the Government, a regularized situation pi which in no way represents a misuse of public money.
Also on the reduction of non-compliances, the Minister of Finance, Ramon Lladós, wanted to quantify them with data: in 2009 the non-compliances of the general administration were 82 and in 2022, 33. And as for the criticism of Escalé for the low execution, Lladós wanted to remind him that Andorra “was one of the countries that came out of Covid the fastest” to which Escalé replied that this it has been normal in economies like Andorra.
Financial entities more resilient to risks
The divergences that there have been in the voting of the liquidations of the accounts of 2022, have not been present in the debate for the approval, unanimously, of the bill amending the Law of Solvency, Liquidity and Prudential Supervision of banking institutions and investment companies. As Lladós has defended, this text, which represents a “further step in the homologation and strengthening” of Andorra’s image, is part of the compliance with the monetary agreement and assumes that the banking entities introduce ” new obligations” to be more “resilient” to additional capital requirements. Thus, he has stated that this modification, which involves the adoption of an EU directive, means that the entities will be “stronger in the face of possible future shocks”. Despite the fact that it is a “very technical” text, Lladós has stated that it means, among other things, that entities must have additional capital requirements to cover certain risks or greater control over the risks in interest rates as well such as “greater detail in disclosure” about these risks. Concordia councilor Pol Bartolomé has taken advantage of this approval to state that a “reflection” is needed on the resources that councilors have to “fulfill control tasks” and “especially” in the face of “texts as complex as these”.