The annual meeting of the Contact Committee of the EU Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) took place in Paris, France. Auditor General Irena Segalovičienė and Lina Nuobarienė, Head of the Communications and International Relations Department, attended the meeting alongside the heads of SAIs from other EU Member States, Tony Murphy, President of the European Court of Auditors (ECA), Members of the European Commission and international experts, to explore whether the green transition is an imperative to strengthen the EU’s economy and strategic autonomy.
  
The theme of this year’s event reflected the EU’s aim to reconcile economic competitiveness, industrial policy and the green transition. In addition to expert presentations and discussions on the challenges posed by the green transition to the EU’s strategic autonomy and the role of SAIs in this process, European SAIs presented the results of their audits in three parallel breakout sessions on energy, circular economy, and agriculture, forest, water.
  
Lithuania’s experience in the field of energy audits
  
During the session on energy, which focused on the sector’s transformation, security and the soundness of investments, representatives of the SAIs of 13 EU countries and experts from the International Energy Agency (IEA) exchanged experiences. Auditor General Irena Segalovičienė was entrusted with the role of rapporteur at this session – she summarised the group discussions and the lessons learnt from the audits carried out and presented the final conclusions to the plenary session of all EU SAIs’ heads.
  
The aim of this session was to assess whether EU and national energy and climate targets are actually being met in practice, who bears the burden of the rising costs of the transition (the state budget or consumers), and how to avoid the risks of creating new dependencies.
  
“Today, the energy transition is not only a matter of the climate agenda, but also a prerequisite for national security and economic competitiveness. The role of the audit community is to ensure that public investment in the green transition builds genuine resilience, rather than becoming an additional burden on citizens or businesses,” said Auditor General Irena Segalovičienė.
  
Among other things, the Auditor General emphasised the importance of increasing resilience, as this involves more than just having sufficient energy supplies in the event of a crisis. It is the system’s ability to adapt solutions as circumstances change and to maintain vital functions while placing as little burden as possible on society. When auditing the energy sector, we must not only consider today’s costs and tomorrow’s risks, but also ensure that the energy transition becomes a source of national resilience rather than vulnerability.

Bilateral meeting with the head of the German SAI
  
During the event, Auditor General Irena Segalovičienė also met with Ansgar Heveling, Head of the German SAI (Bundesrechnungshof).
  
During the bilateral meeting, they discussed the way forward and specific partnership in the field of defence audits, including the planned cooperative audit of medical support for the 45th Armoured Brigade. Preparations were also reviewed for the official visit to Vilnius by the head of the German Federal Audit Office and his delegation, scheduled for January 2027.
  
The heads of the Lithuanian and German SAIs exchanged views on the oversight of defence resource management – both countries emphasise that increased funding alone does not in itself guarantee better military capabilities if the necessary organisational changes are not implemented and the efficient use of funds is not ensured.
  
About the Contact Committee
  
The Contact Committee is an autonomous, independent and non-political forum comprising the heads of the supreme audit institutions of the EU Member States and the European Court of Auditors. Its aim is to strengthen dialogue and cooperation in audit and related activities, and to promote a common approach to audit and accountability issues.
   
The Committee provides an opportunity to cooperate directly with colleagues from various EU countries, sharing expertise, experience and best practice, with a view to achieving a more consistent and higher-quality assessment of the management of public funds across the European Union.

The renovation of public buildings should reduce energy consumption, building maintenance costs and the expenditure allocated to this. However, an audit carried out by the National Audit Office entitled “Improving the Energy Efficiency of Public Buildings” showed that 79 percent of the renovated buildings assessed by the auditors did not achieve the heat energy savings declared in their energy performance certificates. The actual savings in these buildings were, on average, 40 percent lower than declared.
  
Once renovation is complete, the actual reduction in energy consumption is not systematically monitored – the outcome is assessed on the basis of theoretical calculations set out in the energy performance certificates, meaning the state cannot reliably assess the results of investments in building renovation.
  
“If, after renovation, a building saves significantly less energy than planned, we first need to know why. Was the problem in the planning of the investment, or did the outcome depend on other factors? At present, the state cannot answer these questions because it does not systematically monitor the actual results. When investing public funds, it is not enough to know that a building has been renovated – we need to know what we have gained from this investment. This information is essential when planning future renovations, so that we can make more informed decisions and avoid repeating what has not yielded results,” says Auditor General Irena Segalovičienė.
  
Ambitious energy-saving targets
  
In implementing the EU’s energy efficiency requirements, Lithuania will have to save significantly more energy in public buildings by 2030. In the plans approved in 2026, the target energy savings have been increased from 80 to 605.5 GWh – a 7.6-fold increase. Under the EU directive, energy consumption in the public sector must fall by at least 1.9 percent each year.
  
Simply renovating more buildings will not be enough to achieve these targets – every renovation must ensure the greatest possible actual energy savings. It is therefore particularly important not only to calculate the planned savings, but also to verify after the renovation whether they have actually been achieved.
  
Before planning future investments, it is essential to establish why the planned result was not achieved
  
Lower-than-planned energy savings may be due to various reasons: inaccurate initial data and calculation methods, changes in the building’s use or user behaviour, climatic conditions, improperly adjusted building services systems, or shortcomings in the quality of construction work.
  
It is therefore not enough simply to establish that the planned result has not been achieved – it is important to find out why. This would enable decisions to be made on what needs to be changed during the planning, renovation or subsequent operation of buildings, so that the same problems do not recur in other projects.
  
In order to reduce the gap between calculated and actual energy savings, the National Audit Office recommended that the Lithuanian Energy Agency ensure that the calculated and actual energy savings of renovated public buildings are analysed, that the causes of discrepancies are identified, and that proposals for measures to reduce these discrepancies are submitted to the institutions responsible for shaping public building renovation policy and to project implementers.

Lithuania has committed to renovating more than 2 million square metres of public buildings by 2030, which may require a further EUR 681 million. However, the National Audit Office’s audit, “Improving the Energy Efficiency of Public buildings”, shows that before allocating the millions needed for renovation, a simpler question must be answered: do the state and municipalities need all the buildings in which they plan to invest?
  
The audit found that the renovation of public buildings is not sufficiently linked to the management of state-owned property. Most state property managers do not systematically assess how much property they need to carry our their functions. This creates a risk of investing in buildings that may be disposed of in the long term.
  
In 2024, the state owned 9.02 million square metres of property – more than 25,000 objects. Although its total area decreased by 8.4 percent between 2020 and 2024, maintenance costs doubled over the same period – from EUR 176 million to EUR 354 million per year.
  
“Renovating a building that the state will not need in the long run is not cost-effective. This involves not only investment in its renovation, but also ongoing costs for heating and maintenance. This is public money, which must be invested where it creates long-term value. Therefore, before allocating hundreds of millions of euros to renovation, we must assess how much property we hold that is not essential for the provision of public services, dispose of it, and invest only in what is truly necessary,” says Auditor General Irena Segalovičienė.
  
Before allocating millions to the renovation of public buildings, it is essential to assess which property the state actually needs
  
Lithuania has committed to renovating at least 3 percent of the designated floor area of public buildings each year – a target set out in the Energy Efficiency Directive. By 2030, the plan is to renovate nearly 2.2 million square metres, but between 2021 and 2025 only about a fifth – 436,000 square metres – was renovated. Taking into account projects already underway and the funding planned for 2026–2027, around 970,000 square metres of public building floor area would be renovated by 2030. The investment required to renovate the remaining 1.2 million square metres could amount to around EUR 681 million.
  
When planning future investments, it is important to regularly assess whether the available area meets the institutions’ needs, how efficiently it is being used, and which part of the property could be disposed of.
  
However, such a systematic assessment is only ensured for state-owned property managed centrally. The Turto Bankas (Property Bank), which centrally manages state-owned property, currently manages only 7.9 percent of all state-owned property. Ministries, their subordinate institutions and other state property managers do not systematically assess how much property they require and how efficiently it is being used. Consequently, before investing in the renovation of a building, it is not always assessed whether this property will be required by the state in the long term.
  
One of the most important projects for optimising state-owned property is the redevelopment of the Goštautas quarter in Vilnius into a centralised campus for state institutions. The plan was to bring state institutions together in one place, make more efficient use of administrative area, and dispose of some of the energy-inefficient and costly-to-maintain buildings. However, at the time of the audit, a final decision on the implementation of the entire project has not yet been taken.
  
The National Audit Office proposes reducing the total area of state-owned property
 
The National Audit Office recommends that the Government set out specific measures to reduce the total area of state-owned property and to manage the majority of it centrally, and that it implements these measures. To this end, it is first necessary to systematically assess how much and what type of property state institutions actually need to carry out their functions, and how efficiently it is being used. This would enable a better assessment of state institutions’ property requirements and the systematic disposal of buildings that are no longer necessary for the execution of their functions.
  
A smaller area of managed property would mean lower costs for heating, maintenance and repairs. At the same time, the area of buildings requiring renovation in the future would be reduced, as would the need for the necessary investment.