- The President of AIReF appears before the Finance and Public Function Committee on her own initiative to report on the institution’s activities, explain the results of the 2024 external evaluation and provide details of the 2025 Action Plan for the final stage of her term of office
- She recalls that accountability is a key principle of AIReF, which she herself committed to strengthening in the 2020-2026 Strategic Plan
- She believes that the timing of the appearance is very opportune following the return to fiscal rules and their reform. Internally, this is the last year of Cristina Herrero’s term of office and the results and recommendations received from the external evaluation to which AIReF was subjected will be presented
- She stresses that AIReF has incorporated many of these recommendations and other measures into the 2025 Action Plan to strengthen supervision, shield the evaluation function and reinforce impact and accountability
- She highlights that there are other very important recommendations not addressed to AIReF and calls on Congress to make legal changes to adapt the institution’s activity to the new fiscal framework, shield the public policy evaluation function and promote institutional reinforcement
- She considers it an exercise in responsibility to make the most of this last year of her term of office to fulfil the commitments made and respond to the trust placed in her by the Lower House of Parliament in 2020, and also calls for responsibility on the part of the General Government and Congress
The President of the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIReF), Cristina Herrero, appeared today, on her own initiative, before the Finance and Public Function Committee of the Congress of Deputies to report on the institution’s activity in recent quarters, explain the results and recommendations of the external evaluation to which AIReF was subjected in 2024 and provide details of the actions planned in the latest Action Plan of her term of office. The President took advantage of her appearance to call on Congress to make changes to the Organic Law Creating AIReF to strengthen the institution and facilitate its adaptation to the new European fiscal framework that came into force on April 30th, 2024.
Cristina Herrero began her speech by recalling that accountability is a key principle of AIReF’s actions which she committed to strengthening in the 2020-2026 Strategic Plan that she presented to Congress when she was appointed as President. She also stated that the timing of her appearance was particularly appropriate given the return to fiscal rules after several years of suspension, the entry into force of the new European fiscal framework and the complexity of the current geopolitical environment. Internally, her appearance is also important as this will be the last year of her term of office and she has not been called to appear in the last two years due to irregularities in the budget cycle. Furthermore, at the end of 2024, the results of the external evaluation of AIReF were released, along with the evaluators’ recommendations to strengthen and consolidate the institution and adapt it to the new fiscal framework.
In this regard, the President recalled that many of the recommendations were addressed to AIReF and have been incorporated, for the most part, into the 2025 Action Plan, which will run until the end of her term of office in March 2026. However, others are not directly addressed to AIReF, although the institution agrees with them because they are necessary to adapt its activity to the new fiscal framework, shield its public policy evaluation function and institutionally strengthen AIReF.
Among the former, Cristina Herrero referred to the measures incorporated into the Action Plan to strengthen the fiscal supervision and sustainability function, such as strengthening the analysis of long-term challenges and risks, strengthening microsimulation and promoting collaboration with experts by holding more seminars and meetings with academics and other stakeholders. She also highlighted the measures adopted by AIReF to strengthen its evaluation function, such as the decision to publish specific guidelines and procedures for commissioning and prioritisation criteria, the incorporation of suggestions when deciding on the policies to be evaluated and the strengthening of ties with academia. Finally, to improve impact and accountability, AIReF is committed to defining clear and tangible recommendations for the General Government, strengthening relations with Parliament, disseminating evaluations commissioned by the Autonomous Regions and internal communication resources.
Regarding the recommendations not addressed to AIReF, Cristina Herrero highlighted the need for Congress to agree on changes to the Organic Law Creating AIReF in order to adapt the institution’s activities to the new fiscal framework, shield the public policy evaluation function and institutionally strengthen AIReF.
In the first case, the President highlighted the need to amend the regulations to expand AIReF’s participation in the preparation of the Medium-Term Structural-Fiscal Plan (MTP) required by the new fiscal rules. Regarding the need to shield the evaluation function, she stressed the importance of clarifying AIReF’s functions and giving the institution more decision-making power to ensure its efficient implementation and not distort AIReF’s mandate. To strengthen the institution, she highlighted the need to increase the functional autonomy and independence of AIReF and improve transparency and accountability with more appearances and mandatory external evaluations every five years.
Cristina Herrero also highlighted some of the new features that AIReF has incorporated into its Action Plan to adapt to this context. Specifically, she referred to the measures to comply with the new fiscal framework, including new publications, such as the Monitoring Report on the MTP to be published for the first time in May, and the updating of the monthly stability target monitoring sheets to incorporate new key control variables, such as net expenditure on revenue measures. She also emphasised that AIReF will work to constantly ensure the implementation of the new framework and its translation to the national framework. In fact, AIReF has already made recommendations and proposals to the General Government in this regard in its latest publications.
In terms of evaluation, AIReF has incorporated the actions already underway into the Action Plan, including the second phase of the 2022-2026 Spending Review (Official Development Assistance, Temporary Disability and Minimum Income Scheme), the Fourth Opinion on the MIS, the analysis of the effectiveness of pension plan and fund incentives, and numerous studies commissioned by the Autonomous Regions. In addition, AIReF will adopt measures and continue working to consolidate the evaluation function in line with the recommendations of the external evaluation.
Institutional strengthening and reinforcement of guiding principles
In order to strengthen AIReF and its guiding principles, the Action Plan considers initiatives to improve the institution’s human resources, information technology, data management and internal management systems. It will also promote accountability and transparency, with more appearances on its own initiative, greater predictability in its activities, collaboration and participation in university forums and closer ties with the general public.
Lastly, the President stressed that she considers it an exercise in responsibility to make the most of this last year of her term of office to fulfil the commitments made and respond to the trust placed in her by the Congress of Deputies when it unanimously endorsed her Presidency in 2020. However, she recalled that the actions pending also require responsibility on the part of the General Government and Congress to ensure that AIReF and the fiscal framework adapt to the demands of the current economic and budgetary context. “This is not an easy time, but that does not exempt us from our responsibility”, she concluded.
