Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-06-20-Speech-3-071"
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"en.20070620.3.3-071"2
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"Mr President, Mr Langen, with regard to the last aspect, I would say once again that it is clear that, with regard to these quarterly accounts, the Commission and Eurostat are asking a number of countries, including Cyprus and Malta, to supply information, to improve it and to supplement it. I would repeat, however, that these statistics are not relevant in terms of assessing whether or not a country fulfils the convergence criteria. There are thousands of statistics, many series of statistics that the countries have to send to Eurostat, which make up the statistical apparatus of the European system of statistics. Those statistics, however, which are incomplete and deficient in the case of Cyprus and Malta, are not the statistics which we have used and which we must use in order to assess the convergence criteria. They are different statistics.
With regard to your previous comment, Portugal, Italy, France, Greece, Hungary and many other countries have received revisions from Eurostat of the GDP figures, deficit figures, debt figures and many other factors. We are clearly talking in particular about deficit and debt, however.
You, Mr Langen, and all of the honourable Members, know that these revisions have taken place and you know that the figures that we are using thanks to the work of Eurostat and of the Commission, work that has improved considerably over the last three years, are now more realistic and more in tune with reality. Together with the Council you have approved a Regulation that provides for better instruments and more capacities for revising the figures that Eurostat receives from each Member State. We thank you for the support that Eurostat has received and which is enabling it to produce work of a higher quality than it previously produced, and if I, as Commissioner responsible for Eurostat, need new legislative instruments for improving the quality of its work, I shall ask you for it.
I can tell you today that, if I compare the credibility and quality of the Member States’ budget, deficit and debt figures with which I had to work three years ago, then things have clearly improved in that respect, and that is something we should all welcome. Please do not blame the Commission for doing its work properly by offering you and everybody else better deficit and debt figures."@en1
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