Opinion of the European Central Bank of 21 October 2005 at the request of the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Labour on a draft regulation amending the Foreign Trade and Payments Regulation (CON/2005/37)
Date: 2005-10-21
Institutions: European Central Bank
Subjects: Germany, balance of payments, data collection, international payment, national law, statistics

EN 

OPINION OF THE EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK 

of 21 October 2005 

at the request of the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Labour 

on a draft regulation amending the Foreign Trade and Payments Regulation 

(CON/2005/37) 

1. 

On  22  September  2005  the  European  Central  Bank  (ECB)  received  a  request  from  the  German 

Federal  Ministry  of  Economics  and  Labour  for  an  opinion  on  a  draft  regulation  amending  the 
Foreign Trade and Payments Regulation1 (hereinafter the ‘draft regulation’).  

2. 

The  ECB’s  competence  to  deliver  an  opinion  is  based  on  the  fourth  indent  of  Article  2(1)  of 

Council Decision 98/415/EC of 29 June 1998 on the consultation of the European Central Bank by 
national authorities regarding draft provisions2, as it contains provisions concerning the collection, 

compilation and distribution of financial and balance of payments statistics. In accordance with the 

first  sentence  of  Article 17.5  of  the  Rules  of  Procedure  of  the  European  Central  Bank,  the 

Governing Council has adopted this opinion. 

3. 

The contents of the draft regulation 

The draft regulation covers reporting obligations for payment transactions. Since the EU standard 

transfer  order  does  not  contain  a  statistical  reporting  field,  the  draft  regulation  provides  that 

statistical data for payments between EUR 12 500 and EUR 50 000 from 1 January 2006 will be 
collected using different forms from those currently used3.  

4. 

Another aspect of the draft regulation is that, for the purposes of statistical reporting, the Austrian 

areas of Jungholz and Mittelberg will no longer be treated as German economic areas, but rather as 

Austrian economic areas. This reflects the fact that when Austria acceded to the European Union in 

1995 and to economic and monetary union in 1999, the Austrian areas of Jungholz and Mittelberg 

lost  a  major  share  of  their  former  special  status  as  part  of  the  German  customs  area.  For  EU 

statistical purposes, they are treated as part of Austria, in particular for the purposes of EU foreign 

trade  statistics  and  the  system  of  accounts,  as  well  as  in  the  ECB’s  monetary  and  balance  of 

payments statistics. 

1  

2 
3  

Entwurf  einer  Zweiundsiebzigsten  Verordnung  zur  Änderung  der  Außenwirtschaftsverordnung  (draft  72nd  regulation 
amending the Foreign Trade and Payments Regulation). 
OJ L 189, 3.7.1998, p. 42. 
The  treatment  of  cross-border  payments  between  EUR  12  500  and  EUR  50  000  will  change  at  EU  level  on 
1 January 2006,  pursuant  to  Article  3(3)  of  Regulation  (EC)  No  2560/2001  of  the  European  Parliament  and  of  the 
Council of 19 December 2001 on cross-border payments in euro (OJ L 344, 28.12.2001, p. 13). 

 
 
 
                                                      
5. 

The draft regulation also provides for some streamlining of reporting, such as dispensing with the 

requirement  to  submit  duplicates.  Originally,  for  each  financial  transaction  reporting  agents  were 

required to provide data about both the securities/financial derivatives leg and the payment leg. The 

draft regulation specifies that although in certain cases the payment leg will no longer be reported, 

the securities/financial derivatives leg still needs to be reported. 

6. 

As regards foreign direct investment, the draft regulation contains a requirement to provide, at the 

time  of  first  submission  of  data,  a  reason  why  reporting  is  required.  This  brings  the  reporting  of 

foreign  direct  investment  into  line  with  the  data  requirements  of  the  relevant  international 

organisations,  (the  Organisation  for  Economic  Co-operation  and  Development  (OECD)  and  the 

International  Monetary  Fund  (IMF)),  in  particular  the  OECD  Benchmark  Definition  of  Foreign 
Direct Investment4. 

7. 

Assessment of the draft regulation 

The ECB welcomes the draft regulation as it brings German reporting requirements into line with 

international  statistical  standards.  This  will  further  enhance  the  international  comparability  of 

German  statistics  and  may  reduce  asymmetries  between  the  statistics  of  one  Member  State  and 

another in relation to the same cross-border transaction, with a concomitantly positive effect on the 

quality of euro area statistics. The ECB also sees the draft regulation as an important step towards 

streamlining the German system of collecting data on cross-border transactions. 

8. 

This opinion will be published on the ECB’s website. 

Done at Frankfurt am Main, 21 October 2005. 

[ signed ] 

The President of the ECB 

Jean-Claude TRICHET 

4  

Third edition, 1996; available on the OECD’s website (www.oecd.org). 

2