Opinion of the European Central Bank of 19 April 2004 at the request of the Council of the European Union concerning a proposal for a Council regulation concerning the compilation and transmission of data on the quarterly government debt (COM(2003) 761 final) (CON/2004/14)
Date: 2004-04-19
Institutions: European Central Bank
Subjects: data transmission, drafting of EU law, public administration, public debt

C 134/14

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

12.5.2004

OPINION OF THE EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK

of 19 April 2004

at the request of the Council of the European Union concerning a proposal for a Council regu-
lation concerning the compilation and transmission of data on the quarterly government debt

(COM(2003) 761 final)

(CON/2004/14)

(2004/C 134/08)

1. On 5 March 2004,

the European Central Bank (ECB)
received a request from the Council of the European Union
for an opinion on a proposal
for a Council regulation
concerning the compilation and transmission of data on the
quarterly government debt (hereinafter the ‘proposed regu-
lation’).

2. The ECB's competence to deliver an opinion is based on
Article 105(4) of the Treaty establishing the European Com-
munity, as the data that will be compiled and transmitted in
accordance with the proposed regulation will broaden the
coverage of quarterly government data available for ECB
monetary policy analysis.
In accordance with the first
sentence of Article 17.5 of the Rules of Procedure of the
ECB, the Governing Council has adopted this opinion.

3. The objective of the proposed regulation is the compilation
and transmission of quarterly data on government debt as
defined in Council Regulation (EC) No 3605/93 of 22
November 1993 on the application of the Protocol on the
excessive deficit procedure annexed to the Treaty estab-
lishing the European Community (1). The proposed regu-
lation does not alter the existing reporting requirements in
the context of the excessive deficit procedure.

4. The ECB welcomes the proposed regulation as the data to
be compiled under it will complement the sets of quarterly
public finance statistics foreseen in the Action Plan on
Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) Statistical Require-
ments (hereinafter the ‘EMU Action Plan’), established at the
request of the Ecofin Council by the European Commission
in close cooperation with the ECB. The EMU
(Eurostat)
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
in EMU,
report on information requirements
endorsed by the Ecofin Council on 5 June 2000.

5. The proposed regulation will contribute to the overall aim
of compiling a consistent system of quarterly government
accounts for the European Union and thus for the euro
area. It will supplement the existing sets of quarterly govern-
ment data as specified in Commission Regulation (EC) No
264/2000 of 3 February 2000 on the implementation of
Council Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 with respect to short-
statistics (2), Regulation (EC) No
term public
1221/2002 of 10 June 2002 of the European Parliament
and of the Council on quarterly non-financial accounts for
general government (3) and Regulation (EC) No 501/2004 of
the European Parliament and of the Council of 10 March
2004 on quarterly financial accounts for general govern-
ment (4).

finance

6. As the proposed regulation provides that

the quarterly
government debt data will have to be transmitted with the
same deadline (three months after the end of the quarter to
which the data relate) as the data specified in the regulations
mentioned in paragraph 5, they can easily be integrated into
the existing system of quarterly government accounts.

Done at Frankfurt am Main on 19 April 2004.

The President of the ECB

Jean-Claude TRICHET

(1) OJ L 332, 31.12.1993, p. 7. Regulation as last amended by

Commission Regulation (EC) No 351/2002.

(2) OJ L 29, 4.2.2000, p. 4.
(3) OJ L 179, 9.7.2002, p. 1.
(4) OJ L 81, 19.3.2004, p. 1.