EN 
 
 
OPINION OF THE EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK 
of 29 August 2005 
at the request of the Belgian Ministry of Finance 
on a preliminary draft law that amends the Law of 28 February 2002 regulating the compilation of 
the balance of payments and the international in vestment position of Belgium and amending the 
Decree Law of 6 October 1944 on foreign exchange control and various legal provisions 
(CON/2005/31) 
 1. On 17 June 2005, the European Central Bank (ECB)  received a request from the Belgian Ministry 
of Finance for an opinion on a preliminary draft law that amends the Law of 28 February 2002 
regulating the compilation of the balance of paymen ts and the international investment position of 
Belgium and amending the Decree Law of 6 October 1944 on forei gn exchange control and various 
legal provisions (hereinafter the ‘draft law’)
1. 
2. The ECB’s competence to deliver an opinion is b ased on Article 105(4) of the Treaty establishing 
the European Community and on the third and four th indents of Article 2(1) of Council Decision 
98/415/EC of 29 June 1998 on the consultati on of the European Central Bank by national 
authorities regarding draft legislative provisions2, since the draft law concerns the collection, 
compilation and distribution by the Nationale Ba nk van België/Banque Na tionale de Belgique 
(NBB) of monetary, financial, banking, payment sy stems and balance of payments statistics. In 
accordance with the first sentence of Article 17. 5 of the Rules of Procedure of the European 
Central Bank, the Governing Council has adopted this opinion. 
3. Besides inserting into the Law of 28 February 2002 references to the statis tical data covered by 
Regulation (EC) No 184/2005 of the European Par liament and of the Council of 12 January 2005 
on Community statistics concerning balance of pa yments, international trade in services and 
foreign direct investment3, the draft law also makes substantive amendments to the Law of 
28 February 2002, concerning a number of which the ECB has the following comments.  
                                                           
1  For the ECB’s views on the Law of 28 February 2002 regula ting the compilation of the balance of payments and the 
international investment position of Belgium and amendi ng the Decree Law of 6 October 1944 on foreign exchange 
control and various legal provisions (herei nafter the ‘Law of 28 February 2002’)  see ECB Opinion CON/2001/23 of 
30 August 2001 at the request of the Belgian Minister of Fi nance on a draft law on the compilation of the balance of 
payments and the international invest ment position of Belgium and amending the Decree Law of 6 October 1944 on 
foreign exchange control and various legal provisions.  
2  OJ L 189, 3.7.1998, p. 42. 
3  OJ L 35, 8.2.2005, p. 23. 
2 4. The ECB welcomes the fact that Article 5(a) of  the draft law enables the NBB to implement the 
compilation methods for portfolio investment statistics provided for in Guideline ECB/2004/15 of 16 July 2004 on the statistical reporting requirement s of the European Central Bank in the field of 
balance of payments and interna tional investment position statistics,  and the international reserves 
template
4. 
5. The ECB also welcomes the fact that the draft la w introduces the possibility of a direct reporting 
system (see Article 5(b) of the draft law), as opposed  to the current system whereby statistical data 
are primarily collected through the intermediation of the banking sector, and notes that similar direct reporting systems have also been implemen ted in other Member States. Whilst reducing the 
reporting burden on the monetary fi nancial institutions sector and ot her financial intermediaries, a 
direct reporting system should ensure the high quality of data contributed to euro area cross-border statistics. The ECB understands that the direct repor ting system is considered as an alternative to 
the existing indirect reporting system but does not preclude use of indirect reporting in the future, for instance as a ‘fall-back’ method in relation to cer tain categories of transactions for which direct 
reporting proves unsatisfactory. Finally, the ECB understands that the insertion of an explicit 
reference to Article 3, §1 of the Law of 28 Fe bruary 2002 into Article 3, §2 thereof – which 
precisely delimits the transactions about which th e NBB is entitled to receive information – does 
not restrict the NBB’s existing powers. The ECB i ndeed understands that such delimitation already 
derives from the general reference in the sec ond paragraph of Article 2 of the Law of 
28 February 2002 to Articles 3 to 7 thereof. 
6. In order to facilitate the operation of the direct  reporting system, the draft law introduces two new 
data collection methods into the Law of 28 Februa ry 2002, namely (i) sample surveys (pursuant to 
the second paragraph of Article 5(b) of the draft la w); and (ii) ‘secondary data collection’, i.e. the 
collection of already available data from public authorities and professional bodies (pursuant to the 
third paragraph of Article 5(b) of the draft law). The ECB notes that the possibility of sample surveys in certain cases is already currently provide d for in the last paragraph of Article 4 of the 
Royal Decree of 19 March 2002 regarding the co mpilation of the balance of payments and the 
international investment position of Belgium
5 (the decree that implemented the Law of 
28 February 2002), and that this  is now generalised under the draft law. Considering the 
importance for the accuracy of sample surveys of  properly defining the categories of reporting 
agents covered by the surveys, with these reporti ng agents having precisely the same probability of 
being obliged to provide the information (see the seco nd paragraph of Article 5(b) of the draft law), 
the ECB welcomes the additional provision in serted by the draft law into the Law of 
28 February 2002 to the effect that the NBB may also be entrusted by royal decree with the task of delimiting how and when the sample surveys will be implemented (Article 5(d) of the draft law). 
                                                           
4  OJ L 354, 30.11.2004, p. 34. 
5  See ECB Opinion CON/2002/3 of 14 January 2002 at the request of the Governor of the Nationale Bank van 
België/Banque Nationale de Belgique on a draft royal decr ee and draft accompanying regulations on the compilation of 
the balance of payments and the international investment position of Belgium.  
3 The ECB expects that the Belgian authorities will al so consult it in relation to such decree. The 
ECB also notes regarding the secondary data coll ection method provided for under the draft law, 
that the NBB can oblige public authorities to report their data, whereas professional bodies only 
report their data on a voluntary basis. While the ECB welcomes the possibility of secondary data 
collection, the ECB would like to note that if pr ofessional bodies were not to report relevant data 
available to them to the NBB, the NBB would ha ve to collect these data in another way, which 
might prove less efficient and more costly to re porting agents. Therefore, the ECB would like to 
encourage the conclusion of cooperation ag reements between the NBB and the relevant 
professional bodies laying down the modalities for data transmission by the latter to the NBB. This 
could be ensured either through a provision in the dr aft law or through a statement to this effect in 
the explanatory memorandum. 
7. Article 4, §1 of the Law of 28 February 2002 current ly refers in the context of the NBB’s use of 
data to the NBB’s compliance w ith its obligations in connection with the tasks falling upon the 
European System of Central Banks (ESCB), and Ar ticle 4, §2 currently separately refers in the 
context of the NBB’s data communication to the communication of individual data by the NBB to 
the ECB. For consistency reasons, the draft la w moves the reference to the ESCB’s tasks from 
Article 4, §1 to Article 4, §2, but at the same time deletes the reference to communication of the 
data to the ECB from Article 4, §2. While the ECB acknowledges the reason for moving the 
reference to the ESCB, the ECB also understands that deleting the reference to communication of 
the data to the ECB will not limit existing data  communication possibilities from the NBB to the 
ECB under the Law of 28 February 2002 a nd applicable Community legislation. 
8. Finally, the draft law allows the NBB to communicate individual data to the Commissie voor het 
Bank, Financie- en Assurantiewezen/Commission bancaire, financière et des assurances  (CBFA) 
(the Belgian Banking, Finance and Insurance Commission), provided that the CBFA is itself 
authorised to process such data in the context of its prudential supervision tasks (final paragraph of 
Article 6(b) of the draft law). In order to lay down unambiguously the conditions for such 
communication, it might be appropriate to mention explicitly in the draft law that the CBFA should be ‘authorised to directly collect and  process’ the data instead of merely mentioning this in the 
explanatory memorandum to the draft law (see  the penultimate paragraph on page 8 of the 
explanatory memorandum). 
9. This opinion will be published on the ECB’s website. 
 
Done at Frankfurt am Main, 29 August 2005. 
[signed] 
The President of the ECB 
Jean-Claude TRICHET