Mr President, as you can see, this is not exactly a hotly debated issue in Parliament today. When I was given this report in January 2000 I thought it might be quite easy. Unfortunately it was not. As soon as we started the discussion in Parliament we heard from the Commission and Council representatives that there might still be some problems in the Council concerning this mainly technical initiative. After listening to the Council's worries I decided to table some amendments to the Commission proposal in order to reach a wide consensus at first reading. I hope these amendments are supported tomorrow by the other political groups. This proposed regulation deals with the reclassification of settlements under swaps arrangements and under forward rate agreements. It enables reliable comparison of government deficits within the framework of excessive deficit procedure. It is of great importance that information on the Member States' accounts is comparable. Comparison of this information is one of the prerequisites for economic coordination in the Union. The differing statistics on unemployment are one of the best-known examples. Different ways of compiling, calculating and documenting data on real unemployment renders comparisons between Member States difficult. It also renders cooperation difficult. The possibility of reliable comparison of statistical information on the accounts also increases the transparency of our public administrations. Transparency is all we demand in Parliament. We have a saying in Finland which describes three different levels of lying. The different levels are: lies, big lies and statistics. I hope that we in the European Parliament can prevent this from applying to statistical information within the Union. The Commission proposal initially gave rise to concerns in the Council working group. The majority of the delegations expressed reservations about the proposed reclassification as it could lead to changes in the level of government deficit within the framework of the excessive deficit procedure. The proposed change would result in the effects of swaps and forward rate agreements issued by the national debt managers being excluded from the calculation of net borrowing or net lending by the public sector. I essentially agree with the Commission proposal, as amended along the lines suggested by the national statistical experts and the Council working group. The ECB has also approved this system of two definitions, even if they would prefer legal acts with only one definition for important statistical indicators. Excluding swaps and forward rate agreements from the deficit calculations under the excessive deficit procedure would indeed place an unnecessary constraint on the market activities of the national debt managers. Swaps, forward rate agreements and other financial derivatives may, in some cases, reduce the cost of government borrowing and are, as such, useful tools for debt management. I introduced separate treatment for swaps and forward rate agreements, thus paving the way for a first reading agreement on this dossier. My personal view is that I would not like to take this dossier to second reading or to speak on this issue again in this Chamber. I hope this issue will be swiftly dealt with, not only in the sitting tomorrow, but subsequently in the Council. The technical nature of this issue should make this possible.

Political group: PPE-DE