Eurostat Financial Accounts Working Group Comment to the EDG Final Report of 14 October 2004

EUROPEAN COMMISSION EUROSTAT Directorate C: Economic and monetary statistics Unit C-3: Public Finance and Taxation 3 December 2004 Eurostat Financial Accounts Working Group Comment to the EDG Final Report of 14 October 2004 — Contribution to the EDG on Non Performing Loans Introduction 1. On 17 November the Eurostat Task Force on the SNA review (financial accounts and government finance statistics) and thereafter on 18 November the Financial Accounts Working Group (FAWG) met in Luxembourg and examined the Final Report of the Moderator of the Electronic Discussion Groups (EDG) on non performing loans. This 1Final Report is scheduled to be discussed for decision during the Advisory Expert 2Group (AEG) December 2004 meeting. 2. Following the discussion, a written consultation on the approval of the text below was launched on 23 November by Eurostat. By 3 December 2004, 22 national institutions 3(national institutes of statistics—NSI or national central banks—NCB) provided an answer as well as the ECB. 3. It is the opinion of the FAWG that the appropriate statistical treatment of non performing loans ought to take into account additional considerations, notably presented in this contribution, not yet fully treated by the Moderator’s Report. It is suggested that it is premature to come to closure, and that, even though there is some likelihood that the final outcome would remain unchanged—with support in many ...