OPINION OF THE EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK on a
proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 479/2009 as
regards the quality of statistical data in the context of the excessive
deficit procedure.
On 8 March 2010
the European Central Bank (ECB) received a request from the Council of the
European Union for an opinion on the abovementioned proposal.
In general, the
ECB supports the proposed regulation as a very important step towards
improving the quality of the statistics referred to in Regulation (EC) No
479/2009.
The ECB makes
the following specific observations:
- it is very important that the Member States
provide the Commission (Eurostat) with access to all of the information
that the Commission requires for assessing the quality of data. The ECB
also considers that for this purpose a more detailed list than that
proposed to be included in Article 8(2) would be beneficial in order to
increase clarity and certainty as to what kind of information may be
requested. It should be clear that the list is non-exhaustive;
- introducing
some examples could clarify when methodological visits are required.
Frequent and sizeable data revisions, persistent unexplained stock-flow
adjustments and unresolved problems concerning methodological issues may
give cause for concern and therefore warrant a methodological visit,
which the ECB believes is an excellent means of improving the quality of
data;
- the definition
of ‘government deficit (surplus)’ in Regulation (EC) No 479/2009 should
be aligned with international statistical standards. The ECB therefore
proposes to use the deficit (B.9) from the national accounts for the
excessive deficit procedure (EDP) as in the early years of this
procedure. This would have the added benefit of increasing the
transparency of the reporting process, since by excluding settlements
under swaps arrangements and forward rate agreements from the deficit
used for the EDP the deficit figures become less susceptible to
manipulations carried out by way of complex financial transactions;
- to improve
data quality, the ECB would moreover like to ensure that the compilation
of the planned data is based on the most up-to-date available
information, using monthly and quarterly outturns where available.
Ideally, the quality of these planned data should also be scrutinised;
- the
Commission should be given more time to assess the actual data and would
favour extending the period referred to in Article 14 by one week to
four weeks. Extending this period also requires earlier data
transmissions by the Member States, in order not to disrupt the
administrative processes (including, for example, the preparation of
convergence reports) in which these data are used. Hence, the ECB
proposes to advance the reporting deadlines in the future. As the ECB
understands that an amendment of Council Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 on
the European system of national and regional accounts in the Community
(i.e. the European System of Accounts (ESA) transmission programme) is
currently under discussion, the respective deadlines should be aligned
to avoid consistency problems;
- lastly, it
is important that the national statistical authorities have access to
the information needed to ensure the compliance of reported data with
Article 1 of Regulation (EC) No 479/2009 and the underlying ESA 95
accounting rules.
Where the ECB
recommends that the proposed regulation is amended, specific drafting
proposals are set out in the Annex accompanied by explanatory text to this
effect.