European Comission Evaluation

Objective of the evaluation 

The president of AIReF, Cristina Herrero, made a commitment in her Strategic Plan 2020-2026 to undergo an external evaluation with the aim of analysing the alignment of the institution’s activity with the Strategic Plan. This evaluation is also one of the initiatives committed to reinforce one of the guiding principles of the Institution: accountability. This is a self-initiated commitment that will become mandatory from 2026 for all Independent Fiscal Institutions every 5 years, following the reform of the European Union’s fiscal governance framework.

Evaluation team

The evaluation has been carried out by an independent evaluation team selected by the European Commission in the framework of a technical assistance funded through DGREFORM’s Technical Support Instrument.

Results and follow-up

26 recommendations have been identified:

• 18 recommendations addressed to AIReF to improve the performance of its supervisory and evaluation functions, its guiding principles and the impact of the institution.
• 8 recommendations not addressed to AIReF to promote the necessary regulatory adaptations to the new EU fiscal governance framework, a new evaluation function and to strengthen the institution’s functional autonomy.

In line with the commitment also made by AIReF’s president, all the recommendations have been subject to the comply or explain principle and will be monitored transparently on the website. The recommendations will be considered in the next Action Plan that developed the Strategic Plan on an annual basis.