Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the quality of fiscal data reported by Member States in 2012

Article 8(3) of Council Regulation (EC) No 479/2009 (amended by Regulation (EC) No 679/2010), on the application of the Protocol on the excessive deficit procedure (EDP) annexed to the Treaty establishing the European Community requires the Commission (Eurostat) to report regularly to the European Parliament and to the Council on the quality of the actual data reported by Member States. This annual report provides an overall assessment of timeliness, reliability, completeness, compliance with accounting rules and consistency of the data. The previous report (on the 2011 notifications) was adopted by the Commission on 13 April 2012.

Eurostat regularly assesses the quality of the actual data reported by Member States and of the underlying general government sector accounts compiled in accordance with Council Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 of 25 June 1996 on the European system of national and regional accounts in the Community (ESA95). This work concentrates on the factors that explain the general government deficit/surplus and the change in the general government debt. Member States send this information to Eurostat twice per year. This also includes supplementary information such as the “Questionnaire related to the EDP notification tables”, the "Supplementary table for the financial crisis" and bilateral clarifications by Member States. Eurostat also maintains an on-going dialogue with Member States by undertaking regular EDP dialogue visits.

This report is based on the main findings and results of the EDP reporting in 2012, focusing on the latest exercise of October 2012. Where appropriate, comparisons are made with the April 2012 reporting, as well as with the 2011 reportings.

EUR-Lex: COM(2013)88: Follow the progress of this report through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2013:088:FIN

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