Opinion of the European Central Bank of 3 October 2002 at the request of the Council of the European Union concerning a proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 with respect to the delays of transmission of the main aggregates of national accounts, to the derogations concerning the transmission of the main aggregates national accounts and to the transmission of employment data in hours worked (CON/2002/25)
Date: 2002-10-03
Institutions: European Central Bank
Subjects: EU statistics, Economic and Monetary Union, European Central Bank, European accounting system, data transmission, euro area, working time

C 253/14

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

22.10.2002

EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK

OPINION OF THE EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK

of 3 October 2002

at the request of the Council of the European Union concerning a proposal for a regulation of the
European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 with
respect to the delays of transmission of the main aggregates of national accounts, to the
derogations concerning the transmission of the main aggregates national accounts and to the
transmission of employment data in hours worked

(CON/2002/25)

(2002/C 253/09)

from the Council of

1. On 16 September 2002 the European Central Bank (ECB)
received a request
the European
Union for an opinion on a proposal for a regulation of
the European Parliament and of the Council amending
Council Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 with respect to the
delays of transmission of the main aggregates of national
accounts, to the derogations concerning the transmission
of the main aggregates national accounts and to the trans-
mission of employment data in hours worked (the ‘draft
Regulation’).

2. The ECB's competence to deliver an opinion is based on
the first indent of Article 105(4) of the Treaty establishing
the European Community.
In accordance with the first
sentence of Article 17.5 of the Rules of Procedure of the
European Central Bank, the Governing Council of the ECB
has adopted this opinion.

3. The objective of the draft regulation is to reduce the delays
of the transmission of the main aggregates of quarterly
national accounts, to abrogate the derogations accorded
to Member States that prevent
the
main aggregates for the euro area and the European
Union, and to implement
the transmission of national
accounts employment data in the unit ‘hours worked’.

the compilation of

4. The draft regulation is part of the action plan on EMU
statistical requirements (the ‘EMU action plan’), established
at the request of the Ecofin Council by the European
in close collaboration with the
Commission (Eurostat)
ECB. The EMU action plan is a response to the report of
the Monetary Committee on information requirements in
EMU (1), endorsed by the Ecofin Council on 18 January
1999, and the second progress report on information

(1) The second recital of

the draft regulation should be corrected
accordingly, by replacing ‘The report of
the Committee on
monetary, financial and balance of payments statistics (CMFB) on
statistical requirements in EMU’ with ‘The report of the Monetary
Committee on information requirements in EMU’.

requirements in EMU drawn up by the Economic and
Financial Committee and endorsed by the Ecofin Council
on 5 June 2000. The fourth progress report, endorsed by
the Ecofin Council on 29 October 2001, also specifies the
timetable for modifying existing statistical regulations. The
lead to
ECB welcomes the draft regulation, which will
improvements
reliability and
completeness of statistics for the euro area.

regarding the timeliness,

is

important

the monitoring of

5. The provision of timely, reliable and sufficiently detailed
main aggregates of quarterly national accounts for the
the
for
euro area
economy as a whole. Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 of
25 June 1996 on the European system of national and
regional accounts in the Community (2) requires the trans-
mission of the main aggregates of national accounts within
four months of the end of the reference period. The ECB
welcomes the reduction to 70 days of the period within
which transmission must take place.

6. The existence of derogations

in Regulation (EC) No
2223/96 presently affects the availability and accuracy of
euro area aggregates. The ECB welcomes the abrogation of
these derogations. Once Member States transmit all data
within the required time limits, the availability of main
aggregates of quarterly national accounts at euro area
level will
increase and existing estimates will become
more reliable.

7. At present there is no obligation to transmit quarterly data
showing the volume of hours worked. The ECB takes the
view that the importance of measuring the volume of
hours worked has become increasingly apparent due to
changing employment practices, particularly the increasing
and therefore
proportion of part-time
welcomes the provision of quarterly national accounts
employment data in the unit ‘hours worked’.

employment

(2) OJ L 310, 30.11.1996, p. 1.

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Official Journal of the European Communities

C 253/15

8. In order for the draft regulation to be effective, and taking
into account that one of its purposes is the abrogation of
derogations, the ECB believes that it is essential that no
significant new derogations are granted which could
prevent the timely and reliable compilation of euro area
aggregates.

9. Additional efforts are underway to further improve the
timeliness of euro area aggregates on the basis of
voluntary agreements. The objective is to provide GDP
releases for the euro area as a whole including a full
breakdown by major branches (value added) and main
expenditure and income components after 60 days, and
a GDP first estimate with some demand and output
breakdown as well as some productivity measures after

45 days by the end of 2003. The ECB strongly supports
these targets for euro area statistics.

10. The ECB also recalls its requirement for seasonally adjusted
and working day adjusted main aggregates of quarterly
national accounts according to commonly agreed prin-
ciples.

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

European Communities.

Done at Frankfurt am Main on 3 October 2002.

The President of the ECB

Willem F. DUISENBERG