‘The Challenging Task of Developing European Public Sector Accounting Standards’

Abstract

The European Commission has embarked on the project to develop harmonised public sector accounting standards, that will be applicable for all EU member states (EC, Eurostat, 2013). According to Eurostat, the EPSAS are a necessary tool for fiscal and budgetary integration in the EU, and are required for more rigorous, transparent and comparable reporting of financial information (ibid.). The ultimate objective is to have more reliable reporting by EU member states, regarding the debt and deficit levels as required by the Maastricht Treaty (EC, Eurostat, 2017). In order for the EPSAS to achieve the ambitious target of being viewed as building blocks that could bridge the gap between microand macro-reporting levels, the input of various disciplines is required. The EPSAS might be seen as a multi-disciplinary project, in which actors from different fields work together, each drawing on their disciplinary knowledge and methods, using a real synthesis of approaches. By their name, EPSAS would naturally involve the accountancy profession, i.e. the experts in the production and use of accounting information systems at micro-level. These would include auditors as well, for their role in ensuring that accounting systems and the ensuing financial reports are reliable. Since EPSAS are dealing with public financial management systems, the expertise of lawyers is also required, together with the practical knowledge of national budget-setters and policy makers. Given the intertwining of the microand macrosystems, the know-how of economists and statisticians cannot be referred to as an afterthought, but their disciplinary expertise needs to be taken into consideration at the outset. Such effort would be required so that there is conceptual harmonisation to the extent that the targets specified at both microand macro-levels use a common language. This context constitutes a breeding ground for arguments and discussions, especially since national governments do not seem to perceive their reporting systems as static, and are always seeking ways to improve and innovate them (Brusca, Caperchione, Cohen, & Manes Rossi, 2015). The papers included in this Special Issue tackle matters at the very heart of this discussion, following qualitative methodological approaches. These pieces of research will offer some