An online presentation on the budget cycle in Austria and the work of the Parliamentary Budget Office of the Austrian Parliament was held today for employees of the Parliamentary Budget Office and secretariats of working bodies of the Parliament of Montenegro with the aim of further strengthening administrative capacities to support MPs in the course of analysis and debate on key budget documents, and in the part of parliamentary oversight.

Participants were introduced to the fiscal governance framework in Austria, with reference to planning, adopting and implementing programme budgeting, the role of the Parliament, the Fiscal Council and other key institutions, the European Semester, and mechanisms to strengthen fiscal governance. Addressing the reform of the Austrian federal budget and the role of the parliament in the budget cycle, the head of the Parliamentary Budget Office of the Austrian Parliament stressed the importance of strong parliamentary oversight of budget implementation and the importance of impartial and objective analysis provided in this regard by the Parliamentary Budget Office for MPs.

During the second part of the presentation, employees of the Parliament of Montenegro were presented with competencies, principles and organisation of the work of the Austrian Parliamentary Budget Office, as well as products and services provided by the office to MPs. In the course of the presentation, the role of the office in preparing parliamentary debate on the budget, various types of reporting and analysis of budget implementation reports, and cooperation of the Parliamentary Budget Office with other parliamentary services and relevant institutions were discussed.

The workshop is one in a series of activities implemented within the first priority of the partnership of the Parliament of Montenegro with Inter Pares, which involves further strengthening the oversight function of parliament and committees through the exchange of knowledge and experience and comparative parliamentary practice. In addition to the Austrian Parliament, the partners for the first priority are the parliaments of the Czech Republic, Greece, Italy and the French Senate, while part of the activities will be organised with the support of the Croatian Parliament and the French National Assembly.