Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council - Quality Report pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 501/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 10 March 2004 on quarterly financial accounts for general government
Date: 2007-05-03
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: EU Member State, account, data transmission, derogation from EU law, national statistics, public administration

COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES 

Brussels, 3.5.2007 
COM(2007) 230 final 

REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND 
THE COUNCIL 

Quality report pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 501/2004 of the European Parliament 
and of the Council of 10 March 2004 on quarterly financial accounts for general 
government 

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REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND 
THE COUNCIL 

Quality report pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 501/2004 of the European Parliament 
and of the Council of 10 March 2004 on quarterly financial accounts for general 
government 

Article 9 of Regulation (EC) No 501/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 
10 March 20041 requires the Commission (Eurostat) to submit to the European Parliament and 
the Council a report containing an assessment of the reliability of quarterly data delivered by 
Member States. 

The report by the Monetary Committee on information requirements, endorsed by the Council 
(Ecofin) at its meeting of 18 January 1999, underlined the need for a comprehensive statistical 
information  system  to  support  policy-makers’  decisions,  including  quarterly  government 
finance statistics. 

To this end, Commission Regulation (EC) No 264/2000 of 3 February 2000 and Regulation 
(EC) No 1221/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council required Member States to 
send  Eurostat  quarterly  non-financial  accounts  for  general  government,  i.e.  revenue  and 
expenditure,  according  to  ESA95.  Regulation  No  501/2004  complements  these  Regulations 
by defining the government financing activities and balance sheets to be reported according to 
ESA95. Council Regulation (EC) No 1222/2004 of 28 June 2004 completes the coverage of 
this quarterly fiscal reporting by providing for reporting on quarterly government debt. 

The quarterly financial accounts for general government to be provided to Eurostat comprise a 
dataset  encompassing  up  to  300  time  series  per  country,  on  transactions  and  stocks  of 
financial assets and liabilities of general government and its subsectors: central government, 
state  government2,  local  government  and  social  security  funds,  and  on  information  by 
counterpart sector. 

While  data  transmission  started  on  a  regular  basis  in  June  2004,  the  Commission  granted 
numerous  derogations  to  17  countries,  including  the  entire  scope  of  the  Regulation  for  the 
Czech  Republic,  Estonia,  Greece,  Cyprus,  Malta,  Poland,  Slovenia  and  Slovakia.  These 
derogations expired on December 2005. December 2005 was therefore the first date at which 
complete delivery to Eurostat took place. 

The  Quality  Report  aims  at  capturing  the  multiple  dimensions  of  quality,  following  criteria 
commonly  used  to  assess  the  quality  of  statistics3.  The  Report  was  broadly  agreed  with  the 
members  of  the  Joint  Eurostat/European  Central  Bank  Task  Force  on  Quarterly  Financial 
Accounts for General Government. 

1 
2 
3 

OJ L 81, 19.3.2004, p.1 
Only applicable in Belgium, Germany, Spain, and Austria. 
See Eurostat CIRCA Interest Group “Quality in Statistics”, 
http://forum.europa.eu.int/Public/irc/dsis/Home/main. 

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This  Report  comprises  general  sections,  which  explain  the  underlying  concepts,  technical 
issues,  and  main  country  findings,  and  a  final  section  with  a  summary  of  conclusions  and 
recommendations by country. More extensive documentation underpinning those findings has 
been available on the Eurostat website since 2006. 

This  report  is  based  on  the  Eurostat  database  and  metadata  available  as  of  15  March  2006. 
Further  progress  achieved  since  then  by  many  Member  States  is  reflected  in  this  Quality 
Report only for coverage. 

The SPC and the CMFB were consulted on the report, as required by Article 9 of Regulation 
(EC) No 501/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 10 March 2004. 

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Structure of the Quality Report 

1. 

2. 

3. 

4. 

Institutional arrangements 

Accessibility and clarity 

Timeliness and coverage of data transmission 

Coherence 

4.1. 

Coherence between quarterly and annual data 

4.2. 

Coherence between financial and non-financial accounts 

4.3. 

Coherence between stocks and transactions 

4.4. 

Coherence of consolidation 

5. 

Comparability 

5.1. 

Comparability over time 

5.2. 

Comparability with MUFA 

5.3. 

Comparability with government debt 

6. 

Accuracy and reliability 

6.1. 

Coverage of data sources  

6.2. 

Internal consistency and plausibility checks, and major events monitoring 

6.3. 

Methodologies and assumptions used in the estimation of statistics 

6.4. 

ESA95 conceptual adjustments  

6.5. 

Revisions of statistics 

7. 

Conclusions and recommendations 

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Quality Report on QFAGG 

As of 15 March 2006 

1. 

INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENTS 

Quarterly  financial  accounts  for  general  government  (QFAGG)  are  compiled  by  National 
Statistical  Institutes  (NSI)  in  a  majority  of  Member  States,  and  by  National  Central  Banks 
(NCB) in Belgium, Germany, Greece, Spain, Italy, Hungary, Austria, and Portugal. In France, 
QFAGG are compiled jointly by the Ministry of Finance and the NCB, and in Cyprus by the 
Ministry of Finance.  

In a number of Member States, working groups or informal working teams, notably made up 
of  representatives  of  the  NSI,  the  NCB  and  the  Ministry  of  Finance,  deal  with  both 
methodological  and  source  data  issues,  notably  with  the  aim  of  improving  consistency 
between quarterly non-financial and financial accounts4. Active coordination is found useful 
to  meet  and  sustain  high  quality  objectives.  Eurostat  encourages  the  establishment  of  more 
formal and routine working groups in Member States. 

2. 

ACCESSIBILITY AND CLARITY 

Twelve Member States publish either QFAGG (Spain, Hungary, Finland, Sweden, the United 
Kingdom),  or  a  subset  (Belgium,  Denmark,  Italy,  the  Netherlands,  Austria),  or  data  that  is 
broadly  aligned  with  them  (France,  Portugal).  Lithuania  and  Luxembourg  plan  to  publish 
them soon. 

Published statistics are usually available on the website of the compiling institution, and are 
sometimes accompanied by brief methodological notes or explanatory analysis to guide users 
(Denmark, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, and the United Kingdom). 

In spring 2006, Eurostat released on its website QFAGG statistics as EU aggregates and some 
national  data,  along  with  country  descriptions  of  compilation  practices  (e.g.  the  Manual  on 
QFAGG). 

All Member States supplied Eurostat with a description of sources and methods as required by 
Article 8 of Regulation (EC) No 501/2004. Shortcomings in country descriptions are noted in 
particular for Germany, Cyprus, Italy, and Hungary. 

3. 

TIMELINESS AND COVERAGE OF DATA TRANSMISSION 

Under the Regulation, data must be delivered to Eurostat not later than three months after the 
end of the quarter to which the data relate. 

Examining  the  four  last  quarterly  transmissions,  most  Member  States  reported  to  Eurostat 
within the prescribed deadlines, and late deliveries were within days. Ireland and the United 
Kingdom were late twice. One Member State was late with the last delivery, but none with the 

4 

In many Member States the same institution compiles both accounts. 

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previous one. Eurostat and the Member States have established an efficient transmission and 
checking system which allows fast processing of the data and retransmission if necessary. 

Regarding  coverage,  Member  States  are  required  to  deliver  quarterly  data  starting  from  the 
first quarter of 1999. Only 13 countries provided the full coverage of statistics required by the 
Regulation as of the end of 2005. 

Malta and Slovenia have provided Eurostat with no data, and Cyprus very few. 

Germany,  Luxembourg,  and  to  a  lesser  extent  Estonia,  Latvia  and  Sweden  did  not  provide 
complete information on general government and subsectors, often preventing calculation of 
their net lending / net borrowing (i.e. their deficit) or their net financial worth (financial assets 
minus  liabilities).  The  Czech  Republic,  France,  Slovakia  and  the  United  Kingdom  did  not 
provide some counterpart information. 

The  Czech  Republic  did  not  cover  the  whole  time  period.  In  contrast,  some  other  countries 
have volunteered to provide longer time series than required: the United Kingdom, Hungary, 
Spain, Italy, Sweden, Greece, Luxembourg, and Ireland. 

It should be noted that since 15 March 2006 the coverage of the data provided has improved 
for  the  following  countries:  the  Czech  Republic,  Germany,  Estonia,  Latvia,  Slovenia  and 
Sweden. 

4. 

COHERENCE 

4.1. 

Coherence between quarterly and annual data 

Article 2 of Regulation 501/2004 states that quarterly data and the corresponding annual data 
reported under Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 (i.e. annual financial accounts) must be mutually 
consistent. In theory those statistics are identical, and the data reported should be the same. In 
practice, differences in compiling institutions, the impact of “rebalancing” mechanisms used 
for compiling financial accounts and differences in “vintages” create scope for discrepancies. 
Owing to these factors, divergences may be observable during the course of the year. They are 
expected to disappear at least once a year, when both datasets align perfectly. 

Analysing  the  consistency  between  quarterly  and  annual  figures,  Belgium,  Denmark,  Spain, 
Greece,  Italy,  Lithuania,  the  Netherlands,  Austria,  Poland,  Portugal,  Finland  and  the  United 
Kingdom  achieve  perfect  or  nearly  perfect  matches,  whereas  Germany  and  Latvia  exhibit 
noticeable  differences.  The  Czech  Republic,  Estonia  and  Slovakia  reported  considerable 
differences, beyond what is acceptable or explainable. 

4.2. 

Coherence between financial and non-financial accounts 

From  December  2005  onwards,  all  Member  States  had  to  deliver  to  Eurostat  a  complete 
general government dataset, comprising expenditure, revenue and deficit on the one hand, and 
transactions in financial assets and liabilities on the other. The deficit is in theory equal to net 
financial transactions (i.e., the “above the line” is equal to the “below the line”). In practice, 
source data issues, compilation difficulties and institutional arrangements lead to differences, 
often  called  “statistical  discrepancy”  (the  discrepancy  between  the  non-financial  and  the 
financial  accounts).  Whilst  the  discrepancy  is  generally  noticeably  lower  for  the  general 
government  sector  than  for  other  sectors  of  the  economy,  so  far  different  statistical 

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approaches  exist  in  Europe:  some  fiscal  compilers  show  the  discrepancy  to  its  full  extent, 
while others eliminate it during the statistical process. Eurostat has initiated work in 2005 on 
this topic in order to assess national practices and to propose best practice. 

At this early stage, it can be noted that the observed discrepancy is noticeable. Although 12 of 
the  20  countries  for  which  the  discrepancy  could  be  calculated  exhibit  an  average  quarterly 
discrepancy  within  a  range  of  +/-0.05%  of  annual  GDP,  half  of  the  countries  also  show  a 
standard deviation of the quarterly discrepancy of 0.5% of annual GDP. Two countries exhibit 
implausible  discrepancies  that  point  at  significant  data  weaknesses:  Greece  and  the  Czech 
Republic. High standard deviations in discrepancies may point at seasonality patterns issues 
(Spain and Estonia) or at large recordings for specific quarters (Ireland, France and Sweden). 
This will be further analysed. 

4.3. 

Coherence between stocks and financial transactions 

Because  balance  sheets  are  to  be  reported  at  market  value,  the  change  in  stocks  in  a  given 
instrument  over  an  accounting  period  does  not  need  to  be  equal  to  the  transactions  in  that 
instrument.  Revaluations  and  other  events,  such  as  reclassifications,  impact  balance  sheets 
without being recorded as transactions. The monitoring of all those events, also called “other 
economic flows”, is another crucial quality issue for financial accounts. 

Eurostat,  with  the  active  support  of  the  Task  Force  on  QFAGG,  has  introduced  systematic 
reporting of the major events that underpin large other economic flows. A threshold of 0.5% 
of annual GDP (or higher for some specific instruments) has been agreed to identify them. 

Spain, Latvia, the Netherlands, Austria and Poland have documented all such major events. In 
contrast, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, and the United Kingdom have not reported 
to Eurostat any major events. 

4.4. 

Coherence of consolidation 

All reported data, except for Ireland and Slovakia, meet the internal consolidation coherence 
criteria,  i.e.  consolidating  (defined  as  non-consolidated  values  minus  consolidated  values) 
transactions  and  stocks  observed  on  the  asset  side  are  identical  to  those  observed  on  the 
liability side. 

5. 

COMPARABILITY  

5.1. 

Comparability over time 

Article  7  of  Regulation  (EC)  No  501/2004  allows  back  data  to  be  compiled  based  on  “best 
estimates”. It should be noted that reclassifications of units, often perceived as breaks in the 
time series, are instead routinely viewed here as “other economic flows”. 

Most  Member States reported no breaks in their  time series. Seven  Member States reported 
identified breaks: Czech Republic, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria and Poland. 

5.2. 

Comparability with MUFA 

Eurostat does not verify the consistency of QFAGG data with the quarterly financial accounts 
reported  by  NCBs  to  the  European  Central  Bank  in  the  context  of  the  ECB  Guidelines  on 

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Monetary  Union  Financial  Accounts  (MUFA)  (which  also  includes  quarterly  financial 
accounts  for  government  from  April  2006).  Nonetheless,  such  consistency  has  been 
documented  by  way  of  a  country  questionnaire,  given  that  the  involvement  of  different 
institutions and the impact of the “rebalancing” used to compile a full set of quarterly MUFA 
create potential for differences. Due to its timeliness and coverage, QFAGG can usefully be 
used as a quality source for the purpose of compiling MUFA. 

A majority of countries declare that the two datasets are or will be identical. Four countries 
report marginal differences (Germany, Spain due to vintages, France, and Portugal). 

5.3. 

Comparability with government debt 

Quarterly Government debt reported by Member States to Eurostat under Council Regulation 
(EC) No 1222/2004 must be consistent with reported government liabilities in the QFAGG, in 
so far as the definitions of government and of financial instruments are the same. They must, 
however,  deviate  because  the  valuation  rule  differs:  government  liabilities  are  reported  at 
market  value,  whereas  government  debt  is  reported  at  nominal  value  (it  excludes  accrued 
interest and is defined, for “securities”, as the face value). 

On the basis of quantitative analysis, government debt and government liabilities were found 
consistent for all five categories of instruments examined (short- and long-term loans, short- 
and  long-term  securities,  and  currency  and  deposits5)  in  only  four  countries:  Greece,  Spain, 
Luxembourg and Finland, whereas three countries exhibit inconsistencies for three categories: 
Ireland, Austria and Sweden. 

6. 

ACCURACY AND RELIABILITY 

6.1. 

Coverage of data sources  

Regarding  the  use  of  data  sources,  Article  2  of  Regulation  (EC)  No  501/2004  states  that 
quarterly  data  must  be  based  on  information  directly  available  within  government,  such  as 
from public accounts or administrative sources. Flexibility is granted for the compilation of 
equity positions, except for quoted shares and mutual fund components. 

Most  Member  States  report  complete  or  nearly  complete  coverage  of  data  sources  with 
respect  to  government  units  and  instruments.  This  is  achieved  in  several  ways,  primarily 
through access to direct sources, such as to own accounts of each unit, to central databases, or 
to surveys. Greece, Sweden, and the United Kingdom (for local authorities) rely extensively 
on  surveys.  Indirect  information  collected  from  money  and  banking  statistics,  balance  of 
payments,  or  general  securities  databases  are  used  to  compile  counterpart  information,  but 
sometimes also to estimate instruments: notably for Estonia, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg and 
Austria  (extensive  use  of  security  by  security  databases),  and  Portugal,  and  also,  but  to  a 
lesser  extent,  for  Germany,  the  Netherlands,  Poland,  Slovenia,  and  Finland.  Compilers 
commonly  report  difficulties  in  estimating  financial  derivatives  positions  (stocks  or 
transactions) and use indirect source data for insurance technical reserves. 

5 

Coins  are  often  liabilities  of  central  government,  and  government  can  accept  deposits,  in  some  rare 
instances included in monetary aggregates. 

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Transactions  are  commonly  derived  from  stock  information,  in  general  a  second-best 
situation. However, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, and the United Kingdom, and 
to  a  lesser  extent  Ireland,  Germany,  Austria,  Finland  and  Sweden  have  access  to  flow 
information, which is superior. 

6.2. 

Internal consistency and plausibility checks, and major events monitoring 

Most  Member  States  conduct  consistency  as  well  as  plausibility  checks  as  part  of  their 
compilation routines. Consistency checks are made with Excessive Deficit Procedure Table 3, 
with  annual  financial  accounts,  or  on  consolidation.  Plausibility  checks  are  made  on  the 
discrepancy, the growth rates of stocks, or the other economic flows. The Czech Republic and 
Hungary have not documented their practices. 

Member States monitor and report to Eurostat major events that underpin large transactions or 
large other economic flows. Belgium, Estonia, Ireland, Spain, France, Latvia, the Netherlands, 
Austria,  Poland,  and  Portugal  document  most  of  their  large  transactions.  In  contrast,  the 
Czech  Republic,  Greece  and  the  United  Kingdom  have  not  documented  major  transactions. 
Monitoring  of  major  other  economic  flows  is  also  conducted  by  many  Member  States  (see 
section 4.4 above). 

6.3.  Methodologies and assumptions used in the estimation of statistics 

Article 2 of Regulation 501/2004 explicitly allows the use of interpolation and extrapolation 
techniques for some specific instruments. While a number of Member States do not rely on 
such  techniques  (Greece,  Lithuania,  Malta,  Austria,  Slovenia,  and  the  United  Kingdom), 
many  others  use 
to  estimate  equity  positions,  other 
in  order 
receivables/payables,  or  information  available  only  on  an  annual  basis,  as  is  sometimes  the 
case for local government. 

them  occasionally 

6.4. 

ESA95 conceptual adjustments  

Conceptual  adjustments  are  to  be  made  in  order  to  bring  quarterly  data  in  line  with  ESA95 
concepts. These adjustments are similar to those made in annual accounts. 

Categorisation 

Most Members States (except the Czech Republic, France and Slovakia) report source data to 
broadly  align  on  ESA95  categorisation  of  instruments,  with  no  need  for  adjustments.  For 
France, the maturity of short-term securities instruments noticeably exceeds one year. 

Valuation 

Under  ESA95,  the  balance  sheet  must  be  valued  at  market  value,  for  equity  and  other 
securities. Member States apply a market valuation for long-term securities liabilities, except 
in  Belgium,  the  Czech  Republic,  Estonia,  Latvia,  Lithuania  and  Slovakia.  Many  Member 
States  value  their  short-term  liabilities  at  face  value,  which  is  also  incorrect  although  with 
more  limited  quantitative  consequences  (Belgium,  the  Czech  Republic,  Germany,  Latvia, 
Lithuania, Slovakia and the United Kingdom). 

Member States must value equity at its market value or equivalent, using proxies for unquoted 
shares. Ireland values unquoted equity at net assets at market value, Hungary at adjusted book 
value.  The  Czech  Republic,  Estonia,  Greece,  Italy,  Latvia,  Luxembourg,  Malta,  the 

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Netherlands,  Austria,  Poland,  Finland,  Sweden  and  the  United  Kingdom  value  unquoted 
equity  at  net  assets  at  book  value,  and  Slovakia  at  acquisition  value,  which  are  not  best 
practice. 

Time of recording 

ESA  95  prescribes  recording  transactions  on  an  accrual  basis,  and  recording  the  difference 
with  cash  payments  in  other  accounts  payable/receivable.  ESA95  best  practice  is  to  record 
accrued  interest  on  the  underlying  instrument,  which  is  a  requirement  in  the  Manual  on 
Government  Deficit  and  Debt6.  But  only  a  minority  of  countries  follows 
these 
recommendations  for  all  liabilities,  the  majority  opting  to  record  accrued  interest  under 
payables for some debt instruments. 

6.5. 

Revisions of statistics 

Member States report metadata on large revisions to Eurostat, and their causes. The extent of 
revision is an essential element of quality assessment, from the perspective of both the user 
and the compiler. Revisions from one data delivery to the next (notably from the first estimate 
to the second) are analysed here, as they point to source data issues. Calculations of revisions 
between the first estimate and the final data, in practice measured over eight quarters, could 
not  be  carried  out  at  this  stage,  since  QFAGG  regular  data  deliveries  started  less  than  two 
years ago. 

A  preliminary  analysis  over  the  past  seven  regular  transmissions  suggests  that  the  median 
revision, across Member States and across transmissions, is close to 0.2% of annual GDP for 
general  government  net  financial  worth  for  both  the  first  estimate  and  the  most  recent  four 
quarters, and to 0.1% of annual GDP for general government net lending / net borrowing. The 
first  estimate  is  thus  not  abnormally  more  revised  than  subsequent  quarters.  There  is  little 
evidence  of  biases  notably  in  net  lending  /  net  borrowing.  Revisions  to  central  government 
data often dominate, owing to the size and complexity of its financial transactions. 

There is significant diversity across countries, some exhibiting higher revisions: France, Italy, 
Hungary  and  Portugal  (plus  Denmark  and  Luxembourg  for  net  financial  worth),  others 
significantly  lower:  the  Netherlands,  Sweden,  and  the  United  Kingdom.  Owing  to  limited 
experience,  with  many  countries  benefiting  until  recently  from  derogations  or  being  in  the 
development phase, revision analyses need to be interpreted with caution. It is premature to 
draw strong conclusions. 

7. 

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

7 

Significant  progress  has  been  achieved  regarding  the  compilation  of  the  QFAGG.  Data  for 
most  countries  are  of  appropriate  quality,  useful  for  analytical  purposes,  and  suitable  for 

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The Manual can be found under the section Government Finance Statistics (sub-section II.3) of Eurostat 
website: 
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page?_pageid=2373,47631312,2373_58674363&_dad=portal&_
schema=PORTAL#II.2. 
The further developments that have been achieved in the meanwhile by many Member States after 15 
March 2006 are not reflected in this Quality Report. 

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meaningful  Euro  area  and  EU  aggregate  compilation.  They  should  accordingly  be 
disseminated. 

Some  Member  States  must  implement  specific  measures  to  improve  the  quality  of  the 
reported  data.  In  some  cases,  improvement  could  be  achieved  by  complying  with  the 
Community  obligation  of  reporting  time  series  to  Eurostat.  This  would  prevent  the 
Commission  from  initiating  an  infringement  procedure  under  the  Treaty  in  order  to  fully 
enforce Community regulations.  

The  publication  of  QFAGG  should  be  promoted,  with  appropriate  guidance  to  users: 
providing  metadata  to  reflect  national  practices,  warning  users  of  the  volatility  of  these 
quarterly figures, and helping to interpret discrepancies. Publication would foster quality. 

This  assessment  is  to  be  repeated  in  future,  to  monitor  progress  by  Member  States.  Some 
specific assessments and recommendations by Member State are set out in the table below. 

Member 
State 

The data and the 
metadata are of: 

An effort should be made on: 

Belgium 

good overall quality 

•  valuation of debt securities 

Czech 
Republic 

insufficient overall 
quality 

Denmark 

good overall quality 

Germany 

Estonia 

satisfactory overall 
quality; insufficient 
coverage 

insufficient overall 
quality; major 
weaknesses are observed 
with quarterly data often 
not genuine quarterly 
statistics 

Greece 

Ireland 

insufficient overall 
quality 

reasonable overall 
quality 

Spain 

very good overall quality 

France 

good overall quality 

•  provision of whole time series 
•  coherence with annual financial accounts, 

and with non-financial accounts 
reporting major events 

• 
•  valuation of debt securities and unquoted 

equity 
reporting major events 

• 

•  coverage 
•  country descriptions 
•  consistency with annual financial accounts, 

and with debt 

•  coverage 
•  coherence with annual financial accounts, 

and with non-financial accounts 

•  valuation of debt securities and unquoted 

equity 
reliance on direct source data 

• 

•  coherence with non-financial accounts 
• 
reporting major events 
•  valuation of unquoted equity 
•  consistency of consolidation, with non-
financial accounts, and with debt 
• 
reporting major events consistently 
•  coherence with non-financial accounts 

•  enforcing a proper maturity criterion 
• 
limiting revisions of 1st estimates 

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Italy 

good overall quality 

Cyprus 

Latvia 

Limited data and 
documentation has 
been received by 
Eurostat. 

good overall quality; 
incomplete coverage 

Lithuania 

good overall quality 

Luxembourg 

good overall quality; 
insufficient coverage 

Hungary 

good overall quality, 
though metadata are 
insufficient 

Malta 

No data have been 
reported to Eurostat. 

Netherlands 

good overall quality 

Austria 

good overall quality 

Poland 

good overall quality 

Portugal 

good overall quality 

Slovenia 

Slovakia 

No data have been 
reported to Eurostat. 

insufficient overall 
quality; major 
weaknesses for 
compiling transactions 
are observed 

•  coherence with non-financial accounts 
•  country descriptions 
•  consistency with debt 
•  valuation of unquoted equity 
• 
reliance on direct source data 
•  An immediate effort is necessary to 
comply with the EU Regulation. 

•  coverage 
•  valuation of debt securities and of unquoted 

equity 

•  coherence with annual financial accounts 
•  valuation of debt securities 

•  coverage 
•  country descriptions 
• 
•  country descriptions 
• 

reporting major events 

reliance on direct source data 

•  An immediate effort is necessary to 
comply with the EU Regulation 

•  coherence with non-financial accounts 
•  valuation of unquoted equity 
• 
reliance on direct source data 
•  consistency with debt 
•  valuation of unquoted equity 
• 
reliance on direct source data 
•  consistency with debt 
•  valuation of unquoted equity 
• 
reliance on direct source data 
•  consistency with non-financial accounts, and 

with debt 
reliance on direct source data 

• 
•  An immediate effort is necessary to 
comply with the EU Regulation. 

•  consistency of consolidation, with non-

financial accounts, and with annual financial 
accounts 

•  valuation of debt securities and equity 
• 

reporting major events 

Finland 

good overall quality 

•  valuation of unquoted equity 
• 
reliance on direct source data 

EN 

12 

   EN 

 
Sweden 

good overall quality; 
incomplete coverage 

United 
Kingdom 

good overall quality 

•  coverage 
•  consistency with non-financial accounts, and 

with debt 

•  valuation of unquoted equity 
• 
transmission procedures 
• 
reporting major events 
•  valuation of unquoted equity 
•  consistency with debt 

EN 

13 

   EN