Transposition of the new European Union audit regulation into the Croatian national law

Abstract

The audit reform in the EU had the consequence of adoption the new regulatory framework. The European Parliament adopted Directive 2014/56/EU amending the Directive 2006/43/EC on every statutory audit in the EU and the Regulation (EU) No. 537/2014 containing requirements that relate specifically to statutory audit of public interest entities. Each Member States needs to transpose the Directive into their national legislation but also ensure the implementation of Regulation. Within the framework of transposing the Directive into the national regulation each Member State had many options that allow them to tailor the provisions of the national law according to their needs and specific aspects of the national audit markets. However, the number of options brings risks that are connected to additional audit procedures and inefficiencies in the process of performing audit with the potential effects on the quality and cost of audits. The aim of this article is to analyse the most important (not) used options of the Directive and Regulation according to the Croatian national legislation. In that sense, this article provides information about the definition of statutory audit and the subjects of statutory audit as well as the definition of public interest entities in Croatia. In addition, the audit profession in Croatia in analysed in the context of “European audit passport”. The results of this research can be a base for future comparisons between Croatia and the other EU Member States. Finally, the implementation of this provisions will answer: question does the implementation of different option brings convergence of divergence of a single EU audit services market.