The Audit Commission will have a new Commissioner after being elected at Spring Agora 2020, which will take place online this year because of the coronavirus crisis. One of the candidates for that position is Kosta Vukašinović, member of AEGEE-Niš since late 2018 and Subcommissioner of the Audit Commission since February 2020. We interviewed him about his programme and objectives for this year.
Hello, Kosta and thank you for your time to be interviewed. To start off, could you tell us a bit about yourself and your career in AEGEE?
I am a final-year student of Economics, majoring in Accounting, Auditing, and Financial Management. Besides my obvious interest in finances, the majority of my hobbies are not related to it and they include cycling, basketball, drawing, guitar, and playing the piano. Most of my work in AEGEE, at the local level, has been related to the organisation of the Summer University project. Since February 2020 I have also been active at the European level by becoming the Subcommissioner of the Audit Commission.
Your experience in AEGEE is very short (just one year in the association), however, you are already a member of the AC. What made you take this major step, to being a current member of the Commission?
My experience in AEGEE is indeed short, time-wise. I often regret the fact that I did not learn about AEGEE earlier, at the beginning of my studies. However, ever since I joined the organisation, I have been an active member and, thanks to that, I learned and experienced a lot through the organisation’s activities. Learning about the opportunities in AEGEE I decided not to limit myself to the local level and to contribute towards the organisation in the field I have been educated in over the past four years. Therefore, I joined the Audit Commission as a Subcommissioner. Given the fact that I am a final, fourth-year student now, I am able to dedicate myself to the Commission’s work and I believe that I am at the point where I have acquired a significant amount of knowledge related to finances which can be put to use in favour of AEGEE. Soon I will also be facing the labour market and I believe that this position can prepare me for it, enabling me to gain invaluable practical experience. That is the reason why I decided to step up my involvement in the Audit Commission’s activities and applied for this position.
In what sense has your internship at the electricity distribution company helped you to carry out your tasks as Subcommissioner of the AC?
The internship in the company’s financial department helped me develop certain analytical skills which are of great importance for any job related to finances and, especially, auditing. Unfortunately, our work at the Commission has been hindered by the COVID-19 pandemic, so none of it has been able to come to the fore. Therefore, I hope that these skills will help me perform my tasks if I am elected as Commissioner.
What events can you remember as the most memorable during your membership of AEGEE, perhaps those which motivated you to be part of the AC?
I often see 2019 as my freshman year in AEGEE. Therefore, all of the events which I either participated in or organised remain as a nice memory for me. I would certainly point out organising the “SUrvive till the fiNIsh line” Summer University and participating in my first European event called “An Austro-Summer Night’s Dream”, organised by AEGEE-Wien. However, if I have to choose an event which motivated me to join the Audit Commission, that one would definitely be last year’s LTC. We were given a lecture on opportunities in AEGEE by an AEGEE-Academy member, Marijana Asprovska, and the Audit Commission really stuck in my mind. Ever since then, I have seen it as a goal to become a member of it.
What is your flagship measure in this campaign?
My flagship measure would definitely be increasing our Commission’s visibility and raising the interest of fellow AEGEEans in our work and finances in general. That should be done through various training programmes and workshops. Besides that, I would like to continue with the Audit Commission’s good practice and work on its continuous development. We should bring the auditing process closer to people in AEGEE and make it more understandable, because it is the only way to secure the transparency of our organisation’s finances.
To conclude, what are your next objectives in case you are not elected as Commissioner?
I would continue to be an active AEGEEan and work on our locals’ development. Besides that, I would like to extend my term as a Subcommissioner of the Audit Commission and thus go on contributing to the organisation at the European level.