Revamped Course on Sound Fiscal Institutions

After being offered for the last time at the JVI as a virtual course in 2022, the course on Sound Fiscal Institutions was reintroduced this year as a one-week course. It was delivered in late February by the JVI, the Austrian Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF) and the IMF. The program underwent considerable updates to better incorporate recent reform trends and impact assessments. New elements in the program included the overhaul of EU fiscal rules, the increasing importance of debt sustainability analysis as an anchor for fiscal rules, the effectiveness of fiscal institutions in the EU, Austria, and Serbia, budget reform trends in the OECD and Austria, public financial management reform trends in Southeastern Europe, and the role of fiscal institutions in the green transition.

The program comprised a mixture of lectures, workshops, and country presentations by participants. Besides the organizers, lecturers included experts from a diverse array of institutions, such as the World Bank, OECD, the European Fiscal Board, Bruegel, the Serbian Fiscal Council, the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, the Austrian Fiscal Advisory Council, and the Austrian Parliamentary Budget Office. The course also featured a JVI Webinar on “Greening EU Fiscal Rules”, where Zsolt Darvas from Bruegel discussed the incentives (or lack thereof) for green investment in the reformed EU fiscal framework.

Twenty-four participants from twelve different countries attended the course, representing ministries of finance, fiscal councils, parliamentary budget offices, chambers of accounts, and revenue administrations, among others. The course received very high overall satisfaction ratings in the end-of-course evaluation.

The next delivery of the Sound Fiscal Institutions course at the JVI is tentatively scheduled for February 2025.

Markus Eller, Senior Economist, JVI