Regulation (EU) No 549/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council (3) set up a revised European System of Accounts (ESA 2010) and contains the reference framework of common standards, definitions, classifications and accounting rules for drawing up the accounts of the Member States for the statistical requirements of the Union, in order to obtain comparable results between Member States.
(2)
Annex A to Regulation (EU) No 549/2013 provides for the methodology for the drawing up of the accounts of the Member States.
(3)
During the application of Regulation (EU) No 549/2013, minor textual inconsistencies have been identified in Annex A to that Regulation, and those inconsistencies need to be corrected.
(4)
Annex B to Regulation (EU) No 549/2013 (the ‘transmission programme’) provides for a set of tables of national accounts data, including related metadata, which Member States are to transmit to the Commission (Eurostat) within specified time limits for the purposes of the Union.
(5)
The transmission programme should be updated to take into account changing user needs, new policy priorities and the development of new economic activities in the Union.
(6)
Metadata on structural information to be transmitted should take into account the principles described in Commission Recommendation (EU) 2023/397 (4). New metadata transmission requirements should not impose excessive additional costs or excessive administrative burden on Member States.
(7)
The 49th session of the United Nations Statistical Commission considered and endorsed the revised version of the classification of individual consumption by purpose (Coicop 2018) as the internationally accepted standard. Regulation (EU) No 549/2013 makes reference to the previous version (Coicop 1999) in Annexes A and B thereto, and those references should therefore be updated.
(8)
Regulation (EU) No 549/2013 should therefore be amended accordingly.
(9)
Since the implementation of this Regulation will require major adaptations to national statistical systems, the Commission should grant derogations to Member States. Such derogations should be temporary and granted for a maximum duration of three years. The Commission should provide support to the Member States concerned in their efforts to carry out the required adaptations to their statistical systems so that the derogations can be discontinued as soon as possible.
(10)
Following the entry into force of Regulation (EU) No 549/2013 and of Regulation (EU) 2019/516 of the European Parliament and of the Council (5), 11 legal acts based on the previous European system of national and regional accounts, established by Council Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 (6) (ESA 95), are no longer relevant. The measures set out in this Regulation will replace those of Regulations (EC) No 359/2002 (7), (EC) No 1221/2002 (8), (EC) No 1267/2003 (9), (EC) No 501/2004 (10), (EC) No 1161/2005 (11), (EC) No 1392/2007 (12) and (EC) No 400/2009 (13) of the European Parliament and of the Council, Council Regulation (EC) No 1222/2004 (14), Commission Regulation (EC) No 264/2000 (15) and Commission Decisions 98/715/EC (16) and 2002/990/EC (17). Those acts should therefore be repealed.
(11)
This Regulation should apply from 1 September 2024 to coincide with the agreed timing for harmonised national accounts benchmark revisions in Member States. This does not prevent Member States from compiling their statistics in accordance with the amended Annexes before that general application date. In order to ensure sufficient time for the adaptation to new transmission requirements, any new obligation to transmit metadata on structural information should apply from 1 September 2025, even though those metadata may already voluntarily be transmitted before that date.
(12)
With a view to mitigating the social and economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis and in order to reinforce the resilience of Member States’ economies and social structures, the Union has taken major initiatives, in particular NextGenerationEU and the Recovery and Resilience Facility established by Regulation (EU) 2021/241 of the European Parliament and of the Council (18). Against that background, Union statistics should properly reflect the statistical accounts of the institutions and bodies of the Union. Therefore, technical work should be pursued for that purpose, so that a robust methodology is developed allowing for the compilation and dissemination of statistical accounts by the Commission (Eurostat), including the ESA 2010 net lending / net borrowing and the outstanding Maastricht debt liabilities. By 31 March 2024, the Commission (Eurostat) should submit a report to the European Parliament and to the Council on the progress made in that regard.
(13)
Since the objective of this Regulation, namely the creation of common statistical standards that permit the production of harmonised national accounts data to achieve overall comparability at Union level, cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States but can rather, by reason of its scale and effects, be better achieved at Union level, the Union may adopt measures, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity as set out in Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union. In accordance with the principle of proportionality, as set out in that Article, this Regulation does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve that objective.
(14)
Data on information and communication technologies equipment are essential to support the analysis and the policymaking in the context of priority policies relating to digitalisation and the European Green Deal, which aim to reinforce competitiveness and further development of new technologies. Similarly, data on land underlying buildings and structures are important for the analysis of investment and wealth at Union level. The Commission (Eurostat) and national statistical authorities should pursue the methodological work undertaken in this area in recent years with a view to increasing the availability of more detailed data in the context of the future revision of the European system of national and regional accounts.
(15)
Periodic updates are needed to take into account the interaction between globalisation, the green and digital transitions and national accounts in order to provide decision-makers with the necessary data and knowledge to ensure competitiveness, financial stability, budgetary resilience, sound public finances and fair tax policy. Furthermore, the 51st session of the United Nations Statistical Commission has already requested the Intersecretariat Working Group on National Accounts to develop a roadmap for the revision of the System of National Accounts 2008. The revised version of the System of National Accounts is planned to be adopted by the United Nations Statistical Commission in 2025.
(16)
The update of international manuals on national accounts is necessary, in particular with regard to well-being and sustainability, given that so much of the activity affecting economic well-being of the population occurs beyond the production frontier.
(17)
The revision of the System of National Accounts 2008 in 2025 will provide an opportunity to update the internationally agreed concepts, definitions, classifications and accounting rules in order to address global challenges related to climate change, security, inequality, sustainability and well-being and will be instrumental in supporting policymakers in taking informed decisions to foster economic, social and territorial cohesion, reduce social and gender inequalities and catalyse the green and digital transitions. The Commission should therefore regularly provide the required information and discuss with the European Parliament and the Council the revision of the System of National Accounts 2008 before its conclusion planned for 2025.
(18)
The European Statistical System Committee has been consulted,
