do-me/EUR-LEX huggingface dataset:
Opinion of the European Monetary Institute on a consultation under Article 109f(6) of the Treaty establishing the European Community and Article 5.3 of the Statute of the EMI from the National Bank of Belgium on behalf of the Belgian Ministry of Finance concerning draft legislation in the statistical field (CON/95/6)
Date: 1995-08-14
Institutions: European Monetary Institute
Subjects: Belgium, Luxembourg, balance of payments, central bank, confidentiality, data collection, exchange transaction, statistics

OPINION OF THE EUROPEAN MONETARY INSTITUTE

on a consultation under Article 109f(6) of the Treaty establishing the European Community

and Article 5.3 of the Statute of the EMI

from the National Bank of Belgium on behalf of the Belgian Ministry of Finance

concerning draft legislation in the statistical field.

CON/95/6

1.  The present consultation was initiated on 25th April 1995 by the National Bank of Belgium on behalf

of the Belgian Ministry of Finance.  The consultation concerns the following draft legislation in the

statistical field which was transmitted to the EMI:

-   A draft amendment to the Law on the Belgo-Luxembourg Exchange Institute extending its tasks

to  the  collection  of  data  on  transactions  between  Belgium  and  Luxembourg  required  for  the

establishment of the current account of these two countries;

-   a  draft  Royal  Decree  in  pursuance  of  the  above  Law  defining  the  reporting  requirements  of

residents;

-   a  draft  Regulation  which  the  Belgo-Luxembourg  Exchange  Institute  will  issue  in  pursuance  of

the  above  Law  and  Royal  Decree  giving  detailed  instructions  on  definitions  and  reporting

procedures.

2.  As the above draft legislation provides for measures in the context of a reform of the legislative and

regulatory  framework  governing  the  compilation  and  establishment  of  balance  of  payments

statistics,  the  EMI  is  competent  to  issue  an  opinion  on  the  draft  legislation  under  Article  1.1,  third

indent, of Council Decision 93/717/EC of 22nd November 1993.

3.  The EMI welcomes the measures as contained in the draft legislation for the following reasons:

-   The  legislation  will  enable  the  compilation  of  separate  current  account  balance  of  payments

statistics for Belgium and Luxembourg, which is in accordance with Article 109j of the Treaty on

European Union.

-   The legislation is in conformity with international conventions as recommended by the IMF and

with  European  standards  so  far  as  these  have  been  formulated.    This  is  important  to  the  EMI

because it facilitates the comparison and aggregation of balance of payment statistics.

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-   The legislation fully protects confidentiality of individual statistical data.

The  draft  legislation  does  not  give  rise  to  any  further  remarks  which  should  be  addressed  in  this

opinion from the EMI’s point of view.

4.  The EMI agrees that this opinion may be made public by the competent Belgian authorities at their

discretion.

14th August 1995