International Organisations and European Union

In Europe, the institutions of the European Union (EU) increasingly influence the framework for action of citizens, business entities and member states. In addition, the EU supports economic and social development in associated countries as well as in poorer regions of the world. This gives the EU an important global function within the community of public donor countries and institutions.

KPMG has established two central offices with the KPMG EU Office in Brussels and the KPMG UN Desk for the United Nations in New York, which serve as a pool of knowledge to respond to internal and external topical inquiries. To provide you with a glimpse into our service offering, here is a discussion of two areas of interest as examples.

Based on our many years of industry experience, international and interdisciplinary teams develop solutions that take into account the complexity of global challenges for politics and society. KPMG’s range of services for international organisations and public sector institutions includes internal process optimisation, strategy consulting, guarantee management and advice on financial and non-financial reporting. Likewise, we conduct in-depth analyses in the form of studies and evaluations in areas such as climate change and sustainability management, development cooperation, public corporate governance, healthcare management, and banking and insurance regulation.

KPMG has published the "Expect the Unexpected: building business value in a changing world" study at the UN International Business Summit in preparation for the Rio+20 Summit. The study analyses the global megatrends that will most strongly determine the developments of business entities in terms of growth and sustainability over the next two decades. The study illustrates how external influences can be actively countered at an early stage in order to avert resulting global problems and environmental costs for business entities and society as a whole.

The EU’s financial framework for the years 2007-2013 includes a budget of around 975 billion euros. In addition to EU structural funds to promote growth, employment and the improvement of infrastructure for all regions of the EU, the budget also includes extensive research funding. On behalf of the European Commission, KPMG performs the international audit of the proper use of grants awarded under the Structural Funds and the 7th. Framework Programme for Research (FP7).

KPMG has built up an international team with cross-border expertise for this purpose. This not only enables us to effectively support the European Commission in verifying the expenditure of the beneficiaries of the funds, but also to advise our clients on the correct presentation of the accounting of the funds. The aim is to bolster assurance and confidence in the use of funds for EU-funded projects and to significantly counteract repayment risk.