It concludes with analysis of the fiscal position in the euro area in 1998, and a preview based on fiscal plans for 1999. I am drawing your attention to this to show the variety of material supporting the ECB's assessment of the economic and financial position and prospects. The establishment of an institution responsible for monetary policy in the euro area has caused a fundamental change in the use of macroeconomic statistics at European level, very much as anticipated by the Implementation Package nearly 3 years ago. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Eurostat for their efforts to improve the quality and comparability of economic statistics relating to the euro area, and to deliver them to the ECB on a timely manner. They have given this high priority and much progress has been made in the last year or so.
Experience suggests that substantial statistical changes initially bring classification problems.
Although, of course, provision has been made for back data to be available on the closest possible approximation to the new basis, we must also expect some discontinuity in important series. Implementation of last year's short-term Statistics Regulation will bring improvements across a wide range of conjunctural statistics not covered by ESA95. There are also initiatives to improve labour market statistics. With Eurostat, who are responsible for all these areas of statistics at European level, we do our best in the ECB to promote better data. At present the lack of comparable national statistics during the course of the year makes it difficult to monitor the fiscal stance in the area as a whole, and so to assess the balance of fiscal and monetary policy.