Europees Parlement wil meer bevoegdheden voor Eurostat bij controleren begrotingen lidstaten (en)
The European Parliament on Thursday adopted a resolution calling for a strengthening of Eurostat's powers and improvements to the quality of budgetary data. MEPs agreed on the need for minimum standards for statistical data and asked the Council to live up to its political commitments by granting more audit powers to Eurostat. Most notably, they pushed to give Eurostat the power to make unannounced inspections in Member States.
This resolution precedes the opinion the EP will soon give on the Commission proposals for laws giving Eurostat more powers. It outlines the political decisions needed to avoid another situation like the Greek data reporting case.
Member States need to change their attitudes
The resolution raises concerns about a seeming lack of political will, particularly in the Council, to take the necessary steps to enforce Eurostat's powers. It urges the Council to act on its words and not repeat the mistake it made in 2005 when it shied away from granting Eurostat more powers, as proposed by the Commission, and at a time when it was already clear that the rules and their implementation were inadequate. The resolution also calls on Member States to be ready to be scrutinised more closely and to provide Eurostat with more information than has been the case so far.
Statistics are at the basis of good economic governance
The resolution stresses that accurate statistics and improved verification of the reliability of aggregate data provided to Eurostat are essential prerequisites if the new economic governance system is to be effective. The resolution puts pressure on the Council not to water down the legislative proposals of the Commission on strengthening Eurostat, warning that these proposals represent the minimum needed.
Regarding the quality of statistics, Parliament calls on the Commission to put forward legal measures obliging Member States to end the practice of using off-balance sheet activities, an accounting method which allows the temporary hiding of government debt. It also asks Eurostat to work harder to ensure that among other things Member States do not have flawed methods for compiling the data on their budgetary situation and that they use standardised methods which can give comparable results.
Next steps
Following the adoption of this resolution, the Economic Affairs Committee will rapidly continue its work on the Commission's proposals for legislation in order to have the new rules in place as soon as possible.
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