EPSAS and the Unification of Public Sector Accounting Across Europe

In March 2013, the EC started a project aimed at harmonizing accrual-based public sector accounting systems through a set of harmonized accrual-based public sector accounting standards. The entire project is based on the assumption that the “superiority of the accruals principle, whether for macro or micro fiscal monitoring, is indisputable” (EC, 2013, p. 6). The paper offers critical perspective on the possible adoption of the European Public Sector Accounting Standards (EPSAS) inspired by the International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS). More specifically, the paper deals with the theoretical concepts of harmonization, standardization, and unification, as defined by the international accounting literature, with a view to identify the possible consequences of the public accounting unification process that is going to be promoted by the EU. In the European Union perspective, accounting unification is a desirable outcome, a pre-condition for attaining, measuring, controlling, and demonstrating budgetary equilibrium, according to a strictly rational logic consistent with a functionalist perspective of public sector accounting. Such an approach, it is argued in the paper, leads to a misunderstanding of public sector accounting, which is considered as a neutral technology whereas it is actually a tool of commensuration with a strong influence on the economic and political life of social communities, since it generates interpretative categories and contributes to change social relationships and values prioritization.