European Union system of national and regional accounts

KEY POINTS

The conceptual basis of ESA 2010

• ESA 2010 sets out a methodology (Annex A) on common standards, definitions, classifications and accounting rules that must be used for compiling accounts and tables in a comparable way for the EU’s purposes.
• Amending Regulation (EU) 2023/734 updates Annex A to reflect changes in the ‘Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose’ (COICOP), an international classification, which ensures the comparability of data between countries.
• The amending regulation also updates Annex A to correct minor textual inconsistencies that have been identified during its implementation in EU Member States.

The transmission programme of ESA 2010

• Regulation (EU) No 549/2013 also set out a transmission programme (Annex B) with deadlines by which Member States have to send these accounts and tables to Eurostat, the statistical office of the EU. The ESA 2010 accounting system has been applied to data since September 2014.
• These data are used for coordinating economic policymaking between Member States and coordinating fiscal policies (especially through ratios of government debt and deficit), which are part of the EU’s economic and monetary union (EMU) which, in turn, underpins the euro.
• An implementing act, Implementing Decision 2014/403/EU, as amended by Implementing Decision (EU) 2018/1891, granted derogations (exemptions) to Member States with respect to the transmission of statistics, based on requests justified by the need for major adaptations to national administrative and statistical systems in order to fully comply with Regulation (EU) No 549/2013; all thesederogations expired no later than 1 January 2020.
• Implementing Regulation (EU) No 724/2014 sets out the interchange standard for the transmission of data.
• Amending Regulation (EU) 2023/734 updates Annex B to reflect changing user needs, new policy priorities and the development of new economic activities in the EU.
• The amendment also states that data on structural information to be transmitted should take into account the principles described in Recommendation (EU) 2023/397 and that new metadata transmission requirements should not impose excessive additional costs or excessive administrative burdens on Member States.
• Because implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/734 will require major adaptations to national statistical systems, the European Commission can grant temporary derogations to Member States for a maximum duration of 3 years.

Quality assessment

• Member States must provide the Commission (Eurostat) with a report on the quality of the data to be sent. Eurostat then assesses the quality of the data sent.
• Implementing Regulation (EU) 2016/2304 sets out the modalities, structure, periodicity and assessment indicators of the quality reports on data transmitted.

Repealed legislation

Amending Regulation (EU) 2023/734 repeals the following 11 acts relating to ESA 1995:

• Decision 98/715/EC
• Regulation (EC) No 264/2000
• Decision 2002/990/EC
• Regulation (EC) No 359/2002
• Regulation (EC) No 1221/2002
• Regulation (EC) No 1267/2003
• Regulation (EC) No 501/2004
• Regulation (EC) No 1222/2004
• Regulation (EC) No 1161/2005
• Regulation (EC) No 1392/2007
• Regulation (EC) No 400/2009.