Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the quality of fiscal data reported by Member States in 2014

Article 8(3) of Council Regulation (EC) No 479/2009 on the application of the Protocol on the excessive deficit procedure (EDP) 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 2013 notifications) was adopted by the Commission on 7 March 2014.

Eurostat regularly assesses the quality of the actual data reported by Member States and of the underlying general government sector accounts which were compiled for the first time in October 2014 in accordance with Council Regulation (EC) No 549/2013 of 21 May 2013 on the European system of national and regional accounts in the European Union (ESA 2010). 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. Eurostat also maintains a permanent 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 2014, focusing on the latest exercise of October 2014. Where appropriate, comparisons are made with the April 2014 reporting, as well as with the reporting in 2013.

• Primary Source

EUR-Lex: COM(2015)88: Follow the progress of this report through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2015:088:FIN

---