Plenary speech (1) on a system of national and regional accounts, by Sharon Bowles MEP
President, Commissioner,
National and regional accounts are the cornerstone of all macroeconomic statistics and are the lens through which we look at our economies.
Everyone agrees that getting the collection of European statistics right is vitally important. Think back to the start of the economic crisis - manipulating statistics or providing incorrect data can have a detrimental effect on the whole of the EU. Indeed it has long been an objective of this Parliament for statistics to be improved and the powers of Eurostat increased. But Eurostat can only be as good as the statistics that it receives.
We have done a lot in the 6 pack and 2 pack to improve economic governance. In the budgetary framework of the 6 pack it was agreed that there should be better reporting of public sector liabilities and an end to off balance sheet accounting for governments. It takes good statistics to track that.
ESA 2010 consists of a Regulation, accompanied by two annexes. One consists of lists of data which need to be collected which are quite self explanatory. The other (the infamous Annex A) consists of the statistical and accounting methodology, and is many hundreds of pages long and I think the lawyer linguists and secretariat that checked them through and brought several points to my attention deserve a lot of thanks.
Among the various reforms expenditure on R&D and weapons is transferred into capital formation, which reflects the economic situation. There are some knock on effects into GDP and subsequent allocation of structural funds but these will not impact until 2020 and are small. Deficit effects will also be monitored, and are also expected to be small.
In the trialogues, the mission of the Parliament negotiating team was clear: we wanted good quality statistics, we wanted transparency and we wanted as few derogations to the obligations as possible.
Some smaller member states do have resource-based reasons for not being able to provide the same volume of statistics to Eurostat as larger member states, but we wanted to ensure that derogations are kept to a minimum, that they are constantly reviewed, and that the Commission provide methodological support to Member States that need it, with a view eventually to discontinuing any derogation. The agreed wording successfully reflects that.
The biggest sticking point came when four large member states were reluctant to have mandatory transmission of pension liabilities data as foreseen in the Budgetary Frameworks Directive under the 6 pack.
This was unacceptable to the Parliament: we saw it as a blatant attempt to keep potentially embarrassing information out of the public domain and away from calculations. In order to press our point we enlisted public support through the press. How are we to have an honest debate on public finances if Member States insist on hiding uncomfortable truths?
However, after several more rounds of negotiation, we obtained agreement that all Member States will transmit that data: this is a good win for transparency and good governance.
There are other Parliamentary achievements in this report and I thank the shadow rapporteurs for their work on what many saw as a dull file - but as I have explained it had its moments of excitement and is also a fundamental tool to deliver proper economic governance.
Thank you.
Commissioner, many thanks for the contribution of the Commission. I am very sorry that you do not like recital 16, but economic matters are exceptional, we keep being told that, and the ECB is a major user of these statistics, which are fundamental to monetary operations, and so we considered that in this case, we did support putting the ECB´s right to consultation as far as delegated acts. They have that with all regulation to Union acts, and therefore we consider this to be an extension of that.
Now, you and Vicky Ford and Sven Giegold have mentioned the public liabilities point, so I will come back on that briefly. As well as insisting on mandatory transmission, we did insert more safeguards into the text, including tasking the Commission with reporting back to us on existing information on public-private partnerships and other implicit liabilities, which were at the heart of the matter as you have heard; and we also charged the Commission with producing another report assessing whether we need to do even more in this area. We will be watching this closely and I thank you for the update showing that this work is already in hand.
As you also said earlier, while we can expect ESA 2010 to last us a fair time, maybe 15 years, the Parliament must stay active in the meantime in promoting increased transparency as regards accounts for the public sector, and we are already working on the next statistics file which is on the functioning of the statistical framework and independence of statistical institutes (Regulation 223, in the jargon as it is known).
Unfortunately the feedback I have received on that so far is that Member States are again reluctant to sign up to (or even discuss!) increased transparency, for example by publishing on their websites whether there is a "commitment on confidence in statistics" established in their Member State. I find that very worrying indeed.
However, returning back to ESA 2010, I thank again colleagues and recommend my report to this House with the support of my committee for a first reading agreement.