Commission Decision
of 17 December 2002
further clarifying Annex A to Council Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 as concerns the principles for measuring prices and volumes in national accounts
(notified under document number C(2002) 5054)
(Text with EEA relevance)
(2002/990/EC)
THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES,
Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community,
Having regard to Council Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 of 25 June 1996 on the European system of national and regional accounts in the Community(1), as last amended by Regulation (EC) No 359/2002 of the European Parliament and the Council(2), and in particular Article 2(2) thereof,
Whereas:
(1) Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 contains the reference framework of common standards, definitions, classifications and accounting rules for drawing up the accounts of the Member States for the statistical requirements of the European Community, in order to obtain comparable results between Member States.
(2) It is necessary to improve the comparability between the Member States in the data for changes in real Gross Domestic Product (GDP), both with a view to the application of Article 2 of the Council Regulation (EC) No 1467/97 of 7 July 1997 on speeding up and clarifying the implementation of the excessive deficit procedure(3) and the Resolution of the European Council on the Stability and Growth Pact of 16 June 1997(4) and for the purpose of multilateral surveillance more generally.
(3) The implementation and supervision of Economic and Monetary Union require comparable, up-to-date and reliable information on the structure and developments in the economic situation of each Member State.
(4) The economic accounts in real terms, i.e. adjusted for price changes, are a fundamental tool for analysing a country's economic and budgetary situation, provided they are compiled on the basis of unique principles that are not open to different interpretations. To this end, the recommendations for the calculation of data at constant prices in the framework of Council Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 should be deepened and strengthened.
(5) Commission Decision 98/715/EC of 30 November 1998(5) clarifies Annex A to Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 as concerns the principles for measuring prices and volumes. It defines a classification of methods for certain types of products into most appropriate methods, alternatives which may be used if the appropriate methods cannot be applied and methods which shall not be used.
(6) Decision 98/715/EC establishes a research programme for those products for which this classification is not stated. The results of the research programme, carried out jointly with the Member States, are now available. This Decision defines the classification in question taking into account the results of the research programme.
(7) This Decision should harmonise the price and volume measures in national accounts without prejudice to the existing legal framework for harmonised indices of consumer prices laid down in Council Regulation (EC) No 2494/95(6) and its further ongoing or future development.
(8) The measures provided for in this Decision are in accordance with the opinion of the Statistical Programme Committee and the Committee on Monetary, Financial and Balance of Payments Statistics,
HAS ADOPTED THIS DECISION:
Article 1
Objective
The purpose of this Decision is to further clarify the principles for the measurement of prices and volumes contained in chapter 10 of Annex A to Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 in view of the need to further harmonise price and volume measures in accordance with the results of the research programme provided for in Article 4 of Decision 98/715/EC.
Article 2
Classification of methods
A classification of methods into most appropriate methods, alternatives which may be used if the most appropriate methods cannot be applied, and methods which shall not be used is laid down in Annex I to this Decision for products and transaction categories for which this classification is not yet defined by Decision 98/715/EC.
Article 3
Timetable of implementation of the classifications
Annex II lays down the timetable of implementation of the classifications referred to in Article 2.
Article 4
This Decision is addressed to the Member States.
Done at Brussels, 17 December 2002.