Opinion of the European Monetary Institute at the request of the Council of the European Union under Articles 106(6) and 109f(8) of the Treaty establishing the European Community (the Treaty) and Article 42 of the Statute of the ESCB on a proposal from the Commission for a Council Decision on the statistical data to be used for the determination of the key for subscription of the capital of the European Central Bank (the Proposal)
Date: 1998-04-06
Institutions: European Monetary Institute
Subjects: EU law, EU statistics, European Central Bank, European Monetary Institute, opinion

18.6.98

EN

Official  Journal  of  the  European  Communities

C  190/7

OPINION  OF  THE  EUROPEAN  MONETARY  INSTITUTE

at  the  request  of  the  Council  of  the  European  Union  under  Articles  106(6)  and  109f(8)  of  the
Treaty  establishing  the  European  Community  (the  Treaty)  and  Article  42  of  the  Statute  of  the
ESCB  on  a  proposal  from  the  Commission  for  a  Council  Decision  on  the  statistical  data  to  be
used  for  the  determination  of  the  key  for  subscription  of  the  capital  of  the  European  Central
Bank  (the  Proposal)

(98/C  190/06)

CON/98/15

1.(cid:217)The  present  opinion  was  requested  in  a  letter  dated
6  March  1998  from  the  Council  of  the  European
Union  which,  for  this  purpose,  forwarded  document
COM(97)  725  final  to  the  EMI.  The  document
contained 
explanatory
memorandum.  The  EMI  is  competent  to  deliver  an
opinion  under  Articles  106(6)  and  109f(8)  of  the
Treaty.

proposal 

and 

the 

its 

2.(cid:217)The  objective  of  the  proposal  is  to  define  the  rules
which  the  Commission  must  follow  when  providing
the  statistical  data  to  be  used  to  determine  the  key  for
subscription  of  the  capital  of  the  European  Central
Bank  (ECB).  These  rules 
the  definition,
sources  and  method  of  calculation  to  be  used  for  the
data  on  GDP  and  population.  The  statistical  data
must  be  sent  to  the  EMI  by  the  Commission  before
the  day  on  which  the  establishment  of  the  ECB
becomes  effective.  Once  the  ECB  has  been  established
it  must  determine  the  key  for  subscription  of 
its
capital  using  the  data  in  accordance  with  Article  29(1)
of  the  Statute  of  the  ESCB.

include 

3.(cid:217)The  EMI  agrees  with  the  definitions  of  GDP  and
population  to  which  reference  is  made  in  Articles  2  to
6  inclusive.  Unlike  the  determination  of  the  key  for
the  EMI,  which  was  a  once(cid:220)and(cid:220)for(cid:220)all  procedure  to
be  carried  out  on  the  establishment  of  the  EMI,  the
weightings  assigned  to  the  national  central  banks  in
the  key  for  the  ECB  must  be  adjusted  every  five  years
in
establishment  of 
following 
accordance  with  Article  29(3)  of  the  Statute  of  the
ESCB.  The  EMI  notes  that  the  objective  of  the
provisions  of  the  present  proposal  is  also  to  regulate,
by  analogy,  such  future  adjustments.

the  ESCB 

the 

the 

should  collect 

statistical  data 

4.(cid:217)The  EMI  supports  the  principle  that  the  Commission
(Eurostat) 
in
accordance  with  established  procedures.  The  EMI
attaches  importance  to  the  validation  of  the  data  by
national  experts.  It  agrees  that  the  population  data
should  be  validated  by  the  Statistical  Programme
Committee  and 
should  be
is
validated  by  the  committee  to  which  reference 
made  in  Article  6  of  the  Council  Directive  on  the
harmonisation  of  the  compilation  of  GNP  at  market
prices.

the  GDP  data 

that 

5.(cid:217)The  EMI  agrees  that  the  proposal  should  deal  not
only  with  the  definition  and  the  sources  of  the  "raw
material’,  but  also,  for  the  sake  of  consistency  and
accuracy,  with  methodological  issues  concerning  the
aggregation  of  this  data.  In  this  respect,  the  EMI
agrees  with  the  rules  defined  in  Articles  7,  8  and  9  of
the  proposal.  For  full  consistency  with  the  abovemen(cid:220)
tioned  provisions  of  the  Statute  of  the  ESCB,  it  would
be  desirable  to  replace  the  words  "in  the  key’  with  the
words  "in  the  data  referred  to  in  the  present  Decision’
in  Articles  8  and  9  of  the  proposal.

6.(cid:217)Finally,  with  regard  to  Article  10,  the  EMI  expects  to
receive  a  full  set  of  the  data  to  which  reference  is
made  in  the  proposal,  as  was  the  case  in  the  past.

7.(cid:217)This  opinion  will  be  published  in  the  Official  Journal

of  the  European  Communities.

Frankfurt,  6  April  1998