Sittings · Document

DRAFT REPORT (C100108/2025 – 2025/0804(NLE)) 2025-06-19

On the nomination of Stef Blok as a Member of the Court of Auditors

Committee on Budgetary Control · Rapporteur: Tomáš Zdechovský

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PR_NLE_MembersECA

PROPOSAL FOR A EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT DECISION

on the nomination of Stef Blok as a Member of the Court of Auditors

(C100108/2025 – 2025/0804(NLE))

(Consultation)

– having regard to Article 286(2) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, pursuant to which the Council consulted Parliament (C100108/2025),

– having regard to Rule 133 of its Rules of Procedure,

– having regard to the report of the Committee on Budgetary Control (A100000/2025),

A. whereas, by letter of 2 June 2025, the Council consulted Parliament on the nomination of Stef Blok as a Member of the Court of Auditors;

B. whereas Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control then proceeded to evaluate Stef Blok’s credentials, in particular in view of the requirements laid down in Article 286(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union; whereas in carrying out that evaluation, the committee received a curriculum vitae from Stef Blok, as well as the replies to the written questionnaire that he had been sent;

C. whereas the committee subsequently held a hearing with Stef Blok on 15 July 2025, at which he made an opening statement and then answered questions put by the members of the committee;

1. Delivers a favourable / an unfavourable opinion on the Council’s nomination of Stef Blok as a Member of the Court of Auditors;

2. Instructs its President to forward this decision to the Council and, for information, to the Court of Auditors, the other institutions of the European Union and the audit institutions of the Member States.

ANNEX 1: CURRICULUM VITAE OF STEF BLOK

Stef Blok

Born in OMISSIS, in OMISSIS

Education:

1983-1988

1977-1983

Business studies, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (University of Groningen)

Stedelijk Gymnasium Leiden (Leiden municipal grammar school)

Professional experience:

September 2022

April 2022 - May 2022

May 2021 - January 2022

2018-2021

January 2017 - October 2017

2012-2017

2010-2012

1998-2012

1988-1998 1988

Member of the European Court of Auditors

National Coordinator for Sanctions Compliance and Enforcement

Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Policy

Minister for Foreign and European Affairs

Minister for Justice and Security

Minister for Housing and the Central Government Sector

VVD (liberal party) group leader, House of Representatives

VVD member of the House of Representatives (Finance, Economic and Social Affairs portfolio)

Co-sponsor of two private member’s bills on pensions and life assurance; Chair of the parliamentary inquiry into integration policy

ABN AMRO Bank N.V.: successively management trainee, branch manager, credit analyst and senior account manager (corporate banking)

Internship at Société Générale, Paris

Civil society activities:

2017-2018

2010-2012

2009-2012

2000-2010

1994-1997

Chair, Executive Board, Dutch Accreditation Council

Board of Trustees, GGZ Rivierduinen (mental health care facility)

Member of the Supervisory Board of Scholtens Groep B.V. (construction company)

Board of Trustees, Stedelijk Gymnasium Leiden (Leiden municipal grammar school)

Board of Trustees, Het Zuid-Hollands Landschap (nature conservancy organisation)

VVD group leader, Nieuwkoop municipal council

ANNEX 2: REPLIES BY STEF BLOK TO THE QUESTIONNAIRE

Questionnaire for the renewal of Members of the Court of Auditors

Performance of duties: lessons learnt and future commitments

1. What are your main achievements as a member of the ECA? What were the biggest setbacks?

Introduction Knowing that my first appointment as ECA Member would be for only half a term, I concentrated on getting in-depth experience in financial auditing and performance auditing.

Achievements As the Member responsible for the 2024 statement of assurance on EU spending under “Cohesion, resilience and values”, I worked intensively with our statement of assurance team on the largest and usually most complicated category of EU spending. The results will be published in our 2025 annual report. With regard to performance audits, I was responsible for the following special reports:

 “Supporting persons with disabilities” (SR 10/2023);

 “The recognition of professional qualifications in the EU” (SR 10/2024); and

 “The EU’s industrial policy on renewable hydrogen” (SR 11/2024).

I regard the first publication in all official EU languages of an easy-to-read version of an ECA special report – the report on supporting persons with disabilities – as a main achievement, not to mention the fact that the ECA will follow up on this initiative by publishing more easy-to-read versions of its reports. The EU institutions’ commitment to reporting on their achievements regarding the employment of persons with disabilities is also a direct result of the ECA’s work on this topic. I want to point to the publication of open data for the report on the recognition of professional qualifications in the EU. Providing open data is an important topic for me. For this report, I also organised a successful and highly appreciated virtual meeting with representatives of national authorities and professional organisations. The high turnout (about 400 participants) and clear engagement encouraged the implementation of further improvements recommended in the report. As a Member of the ECA, I find it important to promote the institution’s work, reports and recommendations and inform EU citizens and EU and national institutions about them. Since the start of my mandate in 2022, I have frequently engaged with EU citizens, both chambers of the Dutch Parliament, ministers and their respective civil services, and the Netherlands Court of Audit. Furthermore, I have organised press conferences and given TV, radio and newspaper interviews, both in the Netherlands and in other EU countries. This has led to an increased interest in the ECA’s work, resulting in several presentations of ECA reports to committees of the Dutch Parliament. Aside from these official presentations, I regularly present our work to visiting groups of university students and professionals, and I visit schools and universities and attend conferences. Finally, I have become a member of the ECA’s Internal Audit Committee. Setbacks In my statement of assurance work, I see that the ECA’s work and the work of all of those working with EU funds is made more difficult by having to apply very detailed national legislation and rules often going beyond EU requirements.

As setbacks, I see that in performance audits, there is often insufficient comparable information and data. This was particularly evident during the audit on supporting persons with disabilities. This complicates our work and our assessment of the results of EU action.

2. What are the main lessons learnt in your field of competences / results achieved in your duties and audit tasks?

Lessons learnt For the statement of assurance, the main lesson learnt is that complexity leads to errors and a heavy regularity burden on citizens and organisations working with EU funds.

The main lesson learnt from the performance audits that I have led is that, when an EU policy is proposed, too often there is no impact analysis. For instance, in our report on renewable hydrogen, we reported that the lack of impact analysis led to an unrealistic strategy and goalsetting. In our report on supporting people with disabilities, we found that the EU strategy does not take into account the huge differences in national approaches. In our report on the recognition of professional qualifications, we found that available information was not used because the system to access it was not user friendly, even though the information might prevent severe incidents. A welcome side effect we noticed during some of our performance audits is that the focused attention that our audit requires from our auditees, including the Commission, leads to expedited corrective actions.

Main results I am particularly proud of the audit teams that manage to provide valuable results despite obstacles such as lack of data or complex rules.

3. What added value could you bring to the ECA on your second term and/or particularly in the area you would be responsible for? Would you like to change your area of responsibility? What motivates you? The extensive financial knowledge I gained while working as a banker for 10 years gave me the technical expertise needed for financial audits. In my role as a parliamentarian for 14 years, I was an avid user of the ECA’s reports, especially as chair of the Finance Committee of the Dutch Parliament. In several ministerial positions, including Minister of Housing, Minister of Justice and Security, Minister of Economic Affairs, and Minister of Foreign and European Affairs, I was responsible for negotiations on the 2021-2027 multiannual financial framework, the Recovery and Resilience Facility, as well as several EU directives and regulations and their implementation in the Netherlands. At the ECA, I contribute with a combination of technical knowhow and managerial experience. Having spent my first years obtaining indepth experience in both performance and compliance auditing, I am able to serve the ECA in the area of cohesion and other fields. I have committed to continuing to work on the 2025 statement of assurance on cohesion expenditure and will start another performance audit in that area after the summer. This means that, at this moment, I want to continue working on the ECA’s audit work in this policy area. In my view, Members also need to rotate. This will mean that, should I be reappointed, I would change my area of work at some point in this second mandate to wherever I might serve the ECA best at that moment.

4. How do you make sure to reach the planned audit objectives of an audit task? Have you ever been in the situation where you could not realize the audit task and for which reasons? How do you operate in such controversial situations? Ensure that planned audit objectives are reached The statement of assurance has a very tight schedule which requires a lot of effort from the teams involved. Therefore, I paid a lot of attention to planning. I keep in regular contact with the audit team (every 2 weeks) to stay up to date on progress, preliminary observations, and any potential issues. In general, ECA staff is well equipped to deal with issues that inevitably arise during the audit work. In cases where the audit teams met with obstacles with regard to timing or the content of audit information they needed, I personally contacted the Commission or the national authorities involved.

Not (fully) carrying out the audit task Currently, I am responsible for an ongoing task regarding municipal waste management. This publication was planned for July but has been delayed and is now planned for October 2025. When the delays became apparent, I analysed the causes and, with the team, looked for options to limit the delays. There were issues with the availability of staff at critical times for this audit. For the audit questions chosen, a longer time frame was needed. We also faced unexpected significant differences in member states. I chose the appropriate solution to ensure a good quality report, as it forms the basis for the clearing and adversarial.

5. If you were reconfirmed for a second mandate and hypothetically, if you were elected Dean of a Chamber in the ECA, how would you steer the work to define its priorities? Could you give us two or three examples of areas to focus on in the future? Second mandate priorities The ECA is a collegiate body and so are the chambers, where the Members work closely together with staff. My second mandate would fall in the period when the next multiannual financial framework will be negotiated and when the main part of spending for the current 2021-2027 programmes will take place. I would prioritise ensuring that lessons will be learnt from the current period and ensure that these will be gathered and disseminated. As, in all likelihood, there will be proposals for changes in the regulation regarding EU finances, the ECA should provide well-structured and specific opinions. To steer the process, I will continue to engage with stakeholders within the European Parliament and other institutions. Examples First, I will continue to focus on transparency. All public expenditure – EU, national, regional and local – must be both collected and used transparently and with democratic oversight. Wherever budgets are performanceoriented, the agreed payment triggers need to be relevant, specific and auditable. I will continue to encourage providing open data with ECA reports. Second, in the ECA’s performance audits, I will provide clear assessments about which policies deliver and which do not or only partially. EU citizens and the European Parliament need this clear assessment in order to improve policies and the allocation of public money. Third, I will further increase awareness of the ECA’s findings among the general public, stakeholders and press. Sharing our findings with a large public is an essential part of a well-functioning EU.

6. If you had to manage the selection of audit tasks in view of the preparation of the ECA annual working programme, on which basis would you make your choice among the list of priorities received from the Parliament and/or the CONT committee?

What would you do if a political priority does not correspond to the ECA risk assessment of the Union’s activities? List of priorities My wish to contribute positively and actively to decisionmaking and policy implementation in the EU is overarching. Here, the input from stakeholders is essential. As the European Parliament represents the EU citizens, this list and the feedback obtained during our frequent interaction with the Committee on Budgetary Control (CONT) and other committees provide very relevant input for the final decisionmaking process. Risk assessment and priorities For financial audits, risk assessments and work that is representative for the audit population will always remain the leading principles. For our performance audits, not only risk but also relevance for EU citizens and upcoming challenges are relevant. Therefore, parliamentary priorities are already a significant point to take into consideration. Furthermore, a broad coverage of EU policy, expected developments (foresight) and indications of risk to sound financial management, as well as interests from stakeholders, should form the basis for decisionmaking.

Management of portfolio, working methods and deliverables

7. Producing high quality, robust and timely reports is key:

– How would you ensure that the data used in an audit are reliable and that the findings are not outdated? We can improve the timeliness of reports by aligning performance audits with logical moments on the political agenda, such as compulsory policy and legislative evaluations.

For performance audits, the data we use must come from reliable, objective sources. Whenever there are challenges in obtaining data, this is addressed in the recommendations. I included such a recommendation in the audit on supporting persons with disabilities: “Recommendation 1 – Obtain more comparable data across the EU”.

– How would you improve the quality and pertinence of the recommendations? With regard to financial audits, our audit teams also find interesting and relevant findings that are not quantifiable. We include these in the reports for management and the national audit bodies concerned. I see opportunities to make better use of these findings in our annual report. With regard to performance audits, our recommendations should address the cause of the problem, be constructive, well founded, feasible and costeffective, and not shy away from stating what works and does not work. My experience at the ECA has taught me that recommendations are most effective when prepared and shared with the largest group of stakeholders possible.

8. The aim of the ECA’s reform is to establish a stronger accountability relationship between the audit team and the rapporteur member:

– Given your experience, do you think that the role of a member is to be more involved in the audit work? For me, it is extremely important to be involved in the work for both performance audits and our statement of assurance. Alongside my regular meetings with the audit teams, I have participated in parts of the audit work, such as the desk review and on-the-spot audit work. This has provided me with an even better understanding to then present the results included in the reports.

– Would you change the way you work with an audit team? If yes, how? I certainly want to continue to be closely involved in the work of the team.

9. What would be your suggestions to further improve, modernise the ECA functioning, programming and work (audit cycle)? After your first mandate, could you give us a positive aspect of the ECA working and a negative one? Suggestions for improvement I find the audit work is generally of good quality. The ECA is highly respected in the global sphere of public audit. The ECA will need to ensure that it maintains its outstanding reputation and continues to modernise. In this respect, I participated in a pilot project testing the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and I consider the impact and opportunities of AI to be a major challenge for the ECA. The ECA can improve by strengthening its engagement with the general public by using social media and the press, and organising targeted stakeholder meetings. I intend to continue my efforts as regards these activities. In October, I will join the meeting with audit authorities to present and exchange views on the findings and recommendations of the audit on the regularity of cohesion spending. A positive and negative aspect of the ECA As a clear positive aspect of the ECA, I would like to mention the ECA’s skilled and engaged staff. The ECA could do better in its external representation by engaging more with the general public and the press.

10. Under the Treaty, the Court is required to assist Parliament in exercising its powers of control over the implementation of the budget in order to enhance both the public oversight of the general spending and its value for money:

– With the experience of your first term, how could the cooperation between the Court of Auditors and the European Parliament (Committee on Budgetary Control) on auditing the EU budget be further improved? I have very positive experiences with oneonone, indepth discussions with parliamentarians and their staff, which offer the possibility for further indepth analyses following the hearings in the committees. Other options include regular exchanges between CONT and ECA staff and shortterm secondments between the institutions to close the physical distance between Luxembourg and Brussels.

– Similarly, how to strengthen relations between ECA and national audit institutions? Every year, when the ECA presents its annual report to the European and national parliaments, I visit The Hague to present our work. The Netherlands Court of Audit hosts me and my team for one day, during which I present our findings and recommendations in a public event and answer questions from its President and the attendees (2023 example). And vice versa, the ECA invites the Netherlands Court of Audit to present its work, for example in the regular “Cohesion talk” events held online, where relevant work and studies from EU supreme audit institutions and academics are discussed.

11. How will you support the Parliament in the achievement of the shortening of the discharge procedure? What actions can be undertaken from your side? While we can do most of the work during the calendar year on which we report, a significant amount of work is subject to the relevant Commission assessments and accountability documents being ready for us to audit. Unlike in the private sector, the Commission depends on thirdparty information, i.e. national management and audit bodies, to provide information that constitutes a material part of the accounts. The deadlines for providing the information are often closer to 1 March than 1 January, so the ECA receives the provisional accounts by 31 March. Similarly, our audit of the latest payments in a given calendar year can only be completed the following year. Our audits are conducted with due diligence, allowing national administrations and beneficiaries sufficient time to prepare and reply. To further improve the timing of our work, all parties would need to be willing to shorten their stage in the procedure to allow the ECA to report earlier. I will support all reasonable and achievable proposals to further enhance the ECA’s support to the European Parliament’s discharge procedure. Independence and integrity

12. What guarantees of independence are you able to give the European Parliament, and how would you make sure that any past, current or future activities you carry out could not cast doubt on the performance of your duties at the ECA? First of all, I want to reiterate that I stand by the solemn undertaking that I gave before the Court of Justice. My performance so far in my ECA work further supports this. Aside from this personal guarantee and track record, I conduct my ECA work in line with our code of conduct and I will still be bound by it after leaving the ECA. In case of any doubt, I will consult the ECA’s Ethics Committee to seek its guidance and advice.

13. How would you deal with a major irregularity or even fraud in EU funds and/or corruption case involving persons in your Member State of origin? Were you in this situation during your current mandate? Following the work on the 2024 statement of assurance for which I am responsible, several suspected cases of irregularity and suspected fraud are being reported to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office and the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) respectively. So far, there have been no instances of major irregularities or fraud with regard to EU funds and/or corruption involving people in the Netherlands in the audits for which I have been responsible. However, I would not act any differently, no matter the member state involved. As a matter of principle, I have kept a professional distance whenever samples from the Netherlands have been involved. For the 2024 statement of assurance work for which I was responsible, I asked colleagues from the Belgian private office to monitor and, if necessary, decide on cases involving the Netherlands.

14. The existence of conflict of interests can trigger a reputation risk for the ECA. How would you manage any conflict of interest? I do not have any other occupation other than being a Member of the ECA and, in my interaction with the press and the public, I focus entirely on my work at the ECA, thus avoiding any (potential) conflicts of interest. Should any actual or apparent conflict of interest arise, I would take appropriate steps to eliminate or at least mitigate the conflict. I have described specific steps in this respect in my answer to the previous question.

15. Are you involved in any legal proceedings? if so, what kind? No.

16. What specific commitments are you prepared to make in terms of enhanced transparency, increased cooperation and effective follow-up to Parliament’s positions and requests for audits? During my time as Minister of Foreign and European Affairs, I already closely cooperated with the European Parliament to increase transparency. As I have mentioned, democratic oversight of public expenditure is essential. The independent external audits that the ECA provides are themselves essential to provide a solid basis for this oversight. I commit to applying the suggestions under questions 10 and 11. The availability of relevant and reliable data for the public and the European Parliament is a prerequisite for enhanced transparency (question 5). Regarding transparency and the ECA, I find the availability of open data important (question 1).