Recent corrections to previously announced government deficit figures notified by one member state have demonstrated the need to strengthen the monitoring of the quality of budgetary statistics data reported to Eurostat (the statistical office of the EU) in the context of the excessive deficit procedure. On 8 June, the Ecofin Council agreed on a general approach regarding a regulation that will facilitate this.

The aim of the instrument is to allow the member states and the Commission to work together more effectively in improving the quality and reliability of statistical data used to determine government deficit and debt figures.

The new regulation will give the Commission (Eurostat) more powers to verify the quality of data in cases where significant risks or problems with respect to the quality of the data have been clearly identified.

It is crucial to ensure compliance with the applicable rules as reported data must be complete, reliable, timely and consistent to be credible. In general, the rules on budgetary statistics have so far functioned quite well and reported data on government deficit and debt have mostly been of satisfactory quality.

However, any non-compliance with the rules would continue to compromise the reliability of the implementation of the EU fiscal policy rules. The credibility of budgetary surveillance depends upon trustworthy budgetary statistics. Notification of correct statistical data is essential in this regard. 

While the Council has agreed on a general approach on this amending regulation, the final regulation will only be adopted once the opinion of the European Parliament has been received.