Europese Commissie formuleert strategie ter verbetering fiscale statistieken (en)

The European Commission today adopted a Communication to the Council and the Parliament defining a strategy to improve the governance of the European system of fiscal statistics. The strategy provides for a draft Regulation allowing the Commission to conduct a thorough verification of figures, to strengthen the European statistical institute (Eurostat) and to adopt strict standards to ensure the independence of the national statistical institutes. The draft Regulation should be adopted at the start of the year and the standards by June 2005, as recommended by the Council.

As it had announced, the European Commission today adopted a Communication on a global governance strategy for fiscal statistics.

The strategy identifies three lines of action. Initially, at the start of 2005, the Commission will discuss a draft Regulation intended to permit a thorough verification of figures. Under existing legislation the Commission lacks the power to monitor public accounts directly, let alone compile figures in place of the Member States. The fact is that if Eurostat has to carry out verification, its experts should be able to have access to any available information.

The second line of action seeks to strengthen the operational capacities of Eurostat and the Economic and Financial Affairs Directorate-General (DG ECFIN) by increasing resources and assistance by Member State experts.

The third line of action concerns the establishment of European standards for the independence of the national statistical institutes. This requires a thorough consultation of the competent national statistical authorities and should be the subject of a Commission proposal in the new few weeks.

The main proposals in the Communication of the Commission are:

• establishment of on-the-spot checks with a precise definition of the scope of the Commission's powers within its verification missions and giving the Commission the right to examine public accounts directly;
• verification missions mobilising all existing expertise: this could include experts from national auditing bodies responsible for verifying public accounts, together with specialists from other Member States;
• reinforcement of the financial and human resources of Eurostat and DG ECFIN so that they can carry out in-depth evaluation of fiscal statistics;
• lastly, enhancing the independence, integrity and accountability of the national statistical institutes by establishing European standards based on a Code of Conduct, possibly through the mechanism of a Directive.

The text of the Communication is available on:

http://epp.eurostat.cec.eu.int/portal/page?_pageid=1090,1137397&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL