Opinion of the European Central Bank of 11 April 2001 at the request of the Council of the European Union concerning a Commission proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on quarterly non-financial accounts for general government (CON/2001/4)
Date: 2001-04-11
Institutions: European Central Bank
Subjects: Economic and Monetary Union, administrative expenditure, data transmission, proposal (EU), public administration, revenue

C 131/6

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

3.5.2001

OPINION OF THE EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK

of 11 April 2001

at the request of the Council of the European Union concerning a Commission proposal for a
Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on quarterly non-financial accounts for
general government

(CON/2001/4)

(2001/C 131/04)

from the Council of

the European Central Bank (ECB)
1. On 21 March 2001,
the European
received a request
the
Union for an opinion on a draft
the Council on quarterly
European Parliament and of
non-financial accounts for general government (hereinafter
referred to as the (cid:145)draft Regulation(cid:146)).

regulation of

2. The ECB’s competence to deliver an opinion is based on
the Treaty establishing the European
sentence of
In accordance with the first
the Rules of Procedure of
the European
this opinion has been adopted by the

Article 105(4) of
Community.
Article 17.5 of
Central Bank,
Governing Council of the ECB.

3. The objective of the draft Regulation is to specify the trans-
mission of quarterly data on general government expen-
diture and revenue by the Member States to the European
Commission (Eurostat),
in addition to those data already
covered by Commission Regulation (EC) No 264/2000 of
3 February 2000 on the implementation of Council Regu-
lation (EC) No 2223/96 with respect to short-term public
finance statistics (1). The breakdown of general government
expenditure
to
Commission Regulation (EC) No 1500/2000 of 10 July
2000 implementing Council Regulation (EC) No 2223/96
with respect
and
revenue (2).

is defined by reference

to general government

and revenue

expenditure

4. The ECB welcomes the draft Regulation which is part of the
action plan on economic and monetary union (EMU) sta-
tistical requirements (hereinafter referred to as (cid:145)EMU action
plan(cid:146)), established at the request of the (Ecofin) Council by
the European Commission (Eurostat) in close collaboration
with the ECB. The EMU action plan is a response to the
report of
the Monetary Committee on information
requirements in EMU, endorsed by the (Ecofin) Council on
18 January 1999, and the second progress
report on
in EMU drawn up by the
information requirements
Economic and Financial Committee and endorsed by the
(Ecofin) Council on 5 June 2000.

5. While

the provision of

data on general
government expenditure and revenue does not alter in
any way the reporting requirements in the context of the
excessive deficit procedure as set out in Council Regulation

quarterly

(EC) No 3605/93 of 22 November 1993 on the application
of the Protocol on the excessive deficit procedure annexed
to the Treaty establishing the European Community (3), as
amended by Council Regulation (EC) No 475/2000 of 28
February 2000 (4),
the short-term macro-
economic analysis in the framework of ESA 95 national
accounts. In this respect, the draft Regulation is a further
step to a limited set of ESA 95 quaterly sector accounts also
required under the EMU action plan.

it broadens

6. The ECB therefore strongly supports the timetable for the
transmission of quarterly data on general government
expenditure and revenue as envisaged under the draft Regu-
lation. The ECB also calls upon the Member States to
abstain from derogations and to provide the quarterly
data in line with ESA 95 concepts,
in particular for the
compilation of euro-zone aggregates.

7. The draft Regulation might however be improved in some
technical respects: (a) In accordance with Regulation (EC)
No 1500/2000, the title (cid:145)quarterly non-financial accounts
for general government(cid:146) would best be changed to (cid:145)quarterly
data on general government expenditure and revenue(cid:146); (b)
The first sentence of Article 3(2) might be amended to read
(cid:145)Quarterly data shall be transmitted for
the following
catgories (or groups of categories) of general government
expenditure and revenue as defined in Council Regulation
(EC) No 2223/96 of 25 June 1996, as amended(cid:146); (c) Article
3(2) should also require the transmission of quarterly data
on total general government expenditure (TE) and total
revenue (TR), as well as general
general government
government gross saving (B.8g);
(d) Article 4(1)(c) might
be amended to read (cid:145)The quarterly data and the corre-
sponding annual and quarterly ESA 95 data shall be
consistent.(cid:146).

8. This opinion shall be published in the Official Journal of the

European Communities.

Done at Frankfurt am Main on 11 April 2001.

The President of the ECB

Willem F. DUISENBERG

(1) OJ L 29, 4.2.2000, p. 4.
(2) OJ L 172, 12.7.2000, p. 3.

(3) OJ L 332, 31.12.1993, p. 7.
(4) OJ L 58, 3.3.2000, p. 1.