The meeting was attended by 80 delegates from 29 member country parliaments and independent fiscal institutions, as well as the EU, IMF, World Bank, universities, and OECD Delegations.

 

The meeting was opened by Yves Leterme, Deputy Secretary-General, OECD, and Gilles Carrez, MP, General Rapporteur of the Committee on Finance, Economy and Budgetary Oversight of the National Assembly of France, who also served as meeting chair.

 

Background documents and submissions from participants:

• Post-Crisis Debt Overhang: Growth Implications across Countries (draft), by Jorgen Elmeskov and Douglas Sutherland (OECD Secretariat).
• Fiscal Consolidation and Growth: The Italian Experience, by Claudia Trezzani (Italian Chamber of Deputies).
• Fiscal Policies in Crisis Mode: Has the Time for Fiscal Councils Come at Last? (draft), by Xavier Debrun, Marc Gérard and Jason Harris (International Monetary Fund).
• Draft Principles for Independent Fiscal Institutions (a new copy of the Draft Principles with revisions based on PBO discussions and the draft country notes will be circulated electronically to all delegates in mid-March).
• Ex Post Financial Oversight: Legislative Audit, Public Accounts Committees...and Parliamentary Budget Offices?  (draft),  by Rick Stapenhurst, Riccardo Pelizzo and Mitchell O'Brien (World Bank Institute).
• Feedback Mechanism from Ex Post Legislative Audits in the Netherlands from a Parliamentary View, by Eduard A.J. Groen (Netherlands House of Representatives).
• Les institutions législatives assurant une surveillance ex post du budget : éléments d'information sur le système français, by Daniel Hochedez (French National Assembly) – French text only.

 

 

Agenda:

Full versions of the agenda are available in English and French.

 

 

Thursday 23 February 2012

 

Meeting Consolidation Needs While Minimizing the Cost to Growth

• Chair: Gilles Carrez, MP, General Rapporteur, Committee on Finance, Economy, and Budgetary Oversight, National Assembly, France.
• Presenter: Eckhard Wurzel, Senior Economist, Macroeconomic Policy Division, Economics Department (ECO), OECD.
• Discussant: Robert Chote, Chair, Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), United Kingdom.

 

Reinforcing Economic Governance in the European Union

• Chair: Daniel Hochedez, Director, Public Finance Services, National Assembly, France.
• Presenter: Georges Tournemire, Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs, European Commission.
• Discussant: George Kopits, Senior Scholar, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and former Chair of the Fiscal Council, Republic of Hungary.

 

Roundtable on New Institutions

• Chair: Lars Jonung, Chair, Swedish Fiscal Policy Council.
• Presenters: John McHale, Chair, Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, Established Professor and Head of Discipline (Economics), National University of Ireland, Galway.
• Vikki Darrough, Inquiry Secretary, Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit, House of Representatives, Australia.
• Ludovit Ódor, Advisor to the Minister of Finance, Ministry of Finance, Slovak Republic.
• Teodora Cardoso, Chair, Council on Public Finance, Portugal.

 

Assessing the Impact of Fiscal Councils on Fiscal Performance – First Attempts

• Chair: Bob Sunshine, Deputy Director, Congressional Budget Office (CBO), United States.
• Presenter: Xavier Debrun, Deputy Division Chief, Fiscal Policy and Surveillance, Fiscal Affairs Department, International Monetary Fund (IMF).
• Discussant: Frits Bos, Senior Economist on Public Finance and Regional Economics at the CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.

 

 

Friday 24 February 2012

 

Independent Fiscal Institutions and the Relationship with the Media

• Chair: Robert Chote, Chair, Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), United Kingdom.
• Presenters: Bob Sunshine, Deputy Director, Congressional Budget Office (CBO), United States.
• Kevin Page, Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO), Canada.

 

Discussion on Draft Principles for Independent Fiscal Institutions

• Presenter: Lisa von Trapp (OECD Secretariat).
• Discussion led by George Kopits, Senior Scholar, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and former Chair of the Fiscal Council, Republic of Hungary.

A new copy of the Draft Principles with revisions based on PBO discussions and the draft country notes will be circulated electronically to all delegates in mid-March.

 

Legislative Institutions for Ex Post Budget Oversight

• Chair: Daniel Hochedez, Director, Public Finance Services, National Assembly, France.
• Presenters: Mitchell O’Brien, Governance Specialist and Team Lead, Parliament Program, World Bank Institute (based on a paper prepared by Rick Stapenhurst, Parliamentary Advisor, World Bank Institute)
• Eduard A.J. Groen, Head, Department of Social and Financial Affairs, Clerk of the Public Expenditure Committee, House of Representatives, the Netherlands.
• David Wilson, Clerk-Assistant, Select Committees, House of Representatives, New Zealand.

 

 

Report by the OECD Secretariat on current and future projects