Extraordinary EUROSAI 56th Governing Board Meeting
3rd March 2022 (on-line)
On 3rd March 2022, an extraordinary meeting of the EUROSAI Governing Board (GB) was held on-line, with the only item on the agenda being “The situation in Ukraine and EUROSAI’s response to it”. On behalf of the Supreme Audit Institution (SAI) of Ukraine, the Director of its International Cooperation Department, Mr Michail Tolstanov, attended as a guest.
The President of EUROSAI, Mr Miloslav Kala, opened the meeting. He expressed the Czech SAI’s utter condemnation of the acts of violence against Ukraine and informed about the commitment of his SAI to help the SAI of Ukraine. He then welcomed Mr Tolstanov and offered him the floor.
Despite the great effort to address the GB by videoconference from Ukraine, the technical difficulties only allowed Mr Tolstanov to begin his discourse, and after several unsuccessful attempts to re-establish the connection, he was eventually able to deliver the written version of his speech to the GB by e-mail during the session. In this speech, he referred to the war and genocide of the Ukrainian people, to the support and assistance being received from the SAIs’ sphere, to the measures already taken by some international institutions, and appealed to the EUROSAI GB to address the INTOSAI GB with a proposal to suspend the SAI of the Russian Federation from holding the Presidency of INTOSAI and temporarily suspend the membership of the SAI of the Russian Federation in INTOSAI until the complete cessation of Russia's aggression against Ukraine.
The President of EUROSAI then explained that a EUROSAI GB Statement on the situation in Ukraine had been drafted and circulated among all GB members at technical level for discussion and endorsements. The discussion held afterwards led to some modifications to the Statement’s initial draft, which did not interfere in the least with the common ground found within all GB members attending the meeting regarding EUROSAI GB’s condemnation of the aggression against Ukraine, the unanimous support to the SAI of Ukraine and the need of an immediate and swift reply.
As a result, the following final text of the EUROSAI GB Statement was put to vote. This Statement was unanimously approved by all the GB members attending the meeting. The President of EUROSAI thanked everyone and informed that he would send a letter to all EUROSAI members about the results of the GB’s extraordinary meeting to which the Statement that had just been approved would be attached.