Regulation 1998/2533 - Collection of statistical information by the European Central Bank - Main contents

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

L 318/8

Whereas Article 5.1 of the Statute requires the ECB, assisted by the national central banks, to collect either from the competent national authorities or directly from economic agents the statistical information which is necessary for the tasks of the European System of Central Banks (hereinafter referred to as the ‘ESCB’) to be performed; whereas, to facilitate the execution of these tasks, set out in Article 105 of the Treaty, and in particular the conduct of monetary policy, this statistical information is used primarily for the production of aggregated statistical information, for which the identity of individual economic agents is irrelevant, but may also be used at the level of individual economic agents; whereas Article 5.2 of the Statute requires the national central banks to carry out, to the extent possible, the tasks described in Article 5.1 of the Statute; whereas Article 5.4 of the Statute requires the Council to define the natural and legal persons subject to reporting requirements, the confidentiality regime and the appropriate provisions for enforcement; whereas the national central banks may cooperate with other competent authorities, including national statistical institutes and market regulators, for the purposes of Article 5.1 of the Statute;

Whereas, in order for statistical information to be effective as an instrument for the performance of the tasks of the ESCB, definitions and procedures for its collection need to be structured so that the ECB has the ability and flexibility to avail itself in a timely manner of high-quality statistics which reflect changing economic and financial conditions and take account of the burden imposed on reporting agents; whereas in so doing attention must be paid not only to the performance of the ESCB's tasks and its independence but also to keeping the burden placed on the reporting agents to a minimum;

Whereas it is therefore desirable to define a reference reporting population in terms of categories of economic units and statistical applications involved, to which the statistical powers of the ECB is confined and from which the ECB determines the actual reporting population through its regulatory power,

Whereas a homogeneous reporting population is necessary for the production of the consolidated balance sheet of the Monetary Financial Institutions sector of the participating Member States, the principal aim of which is to provide the ECB with a comprehensive statistical picture of monetary developments in the participating Member States, seen as one economic territory; whereas the ECB has established and maintains a List of Monetary Financial Institutions for statistical purposes based on a common definition of these institutions;

Whereas the said common definition for statistical purposes specifies that Monetary Financial Institutions comprise credit institutions as defined in Community law, and all other resident financial institutions whose business is to receive deposits and/or close substitutes for...