Regional Conference on Public Internal Financial Control for Candidate and Potential Candidate Countries

The Regional Public Internal Financial Control Conference for Candidate and Potential Candidate Countries is taking place on 27 - 29 October 2010 at the Regent Esplanade Hotel in Zagreb.

The conference is organised by the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Croatia in co-operation with Sigma and supported by the Delegation of European Union in Croatia.

The Head of the EU Delegation Ambassador Paul Vandoren, and Mr Ivan Šuker, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, welcomed the participants at the conference.

Apart from the Croatian authorities, the conference is attended as well by the representatives of some Member States - Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovenia as well as representatives of Candidate Countries and Potential Candidates.

Presentations on the importance of internal financial control development will be delivered by the representatives of the European Commission, DG Budget, SIGMA experts and other important professionals in this field.

Commenting on the event, the Ambassador Paul Vandoren, the Head of the EU Delegation to the Republic of Croatia underlined that:

"An efficient PIFC system provides for better accountability in spending public funds thus reassuring the taxpayers that their money is spent efficiently and that the risks for fraud and corruption are minimised."

The Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance, Mr Ivan Šuker highlighted the following:

"The development of the PIFC system is one of the key "silent reforms" within the state administration system. The PIFC system introduces a new way of work and thinking, and the Republic of Croatia has been moving in this new direction since 2004, to include: strategic thinking, setting the objectives, performance indicators to measure the achievement of objectives and accountability for what was achieved. PIFC is a system that puts order and discipline in public finance, a reason why this Project has enjoyed my full support all these years."

Mr Robert Gielisse, Head of PIFC Department in the European Commission in Brussels, stated:

"Public Internal Financial control is about making sure that governments spend money wisely. This regional conference is an important opportunity to bring countries together in order to share experiences on PIFC implementation and to learn from good practices. Croatia has made notable progress towards meeting EU requirements for accession. The European Commission will continue to follow developments in Croatia and supports further reforms to improve sound financial management and better delivery of services for citizens and businesses"

This is the first regional conference in the field of Public Internal Financial Control system, and its main objectives are, as follows:

• To get acquainted with the experiences of new members states Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovenia in the development of internal financial control,
• To recognise the link between internal financial control development and other reform processes, such as budget reforms and public administration reforms,
• To identify ways of establishing networking mechanisms, in the countries participating in this conference, for sharing experiences on a frequent basis.

This conference is expected to give a boost to the development of internal financial control and to lead to close cooperation among the aforementioned countries for the purpose of sharing experiences and good practices.