National accounts: time limit for transmission of main aggregates, derogations, transmission of employment data

OBJECTIVE: to reduce the transmission time for the main aggregates of quarterly national accounts, scrap the derogations granted to Member States which prevent the preparation of the main aggregates for the quarterly and annual national accounts for the euro zone and the European Union and implement the transmission of data for the use of national accounts in the 'hours worked' unit. CONTENT: the transmission time in the quarterly and annual main aggregates table in annex B of SEC 95 is currently fixed, for the quarterly data, at four months from the end of the reference period. Under the proposed regulation, that period would be reduced to 70 days from the end of the reference period. In order to work out the main aggregates for quarterly national accounts for the euro zone and the European Union, the main quarterly and annual aggregates for the national accounts of all the Member States are required. The regulation proposes the scrapping of all derogations granted to Member States in annex B of SEC 95 that are an obstacle to the preparation of the main aggregates for the quarterly national accounts for the euro zone and the European Union (the aggregate shown in table I in annex B to SEC 95). The regulation refers to both the annual and the quarterly derogations that are preventing their preparation. Annex II to the regulation indicates, country by country, the amendments to be made to annex B of SEC 95. In accordance with annex B of SEC 95, the unit used to transmit the employment figures in the national accounts is thousands of persons or full-time equivalence. To improve the comparability of employment data in national accounts, the regulation proposes that the transmission of employment figures be added to the 'hours worked' unit on both an annual and a quarterly basis. Annex III sets out the amendments to be made to table I in annex B to incorporate that unit in the transmission programme. �