National accounts are a system of accounts and balance sheets that provide a broad and integrated framework for describing an economy. National accounts statistics are currently transmitted by national statistical institutes to Eurostat based on the requirements of the European System of National and Regional Accounts (ESA 2010) under Regulation (EU) No 549/2013 (‘ESA 2010 Regulation’).

The ESA 2010 Regulation provides Member States with a common and harmonised methodology for compiling national accounts and a transmission programme that sets out requirements and deadlines for transmitting data to Eurostat.

The EU requirements are aligned with the System of National Accounts 2008 (SNA 2008), the global statistical standards for the compilation of national accounts.

The SNA 2008 is currently being revised to incorporate important economic developments that have taken place in recent years, particularly in the field of
globalisation and digitalisation, and to meet growing user demand, in order to to include aspects of equality and environmental sustainability in the national accounts.

A new version of the SNA should be approved by the global statistical community in 2025. EU requirements will have to be aligned with the new version of the SNA in order to preserve comparability between the main macroeconomic indicators of EU economies and those of third country economies, and to strengthen consistency with balance of payments statistics (which will be aligned with the new version of the SNA).

According to the European Commission, the current European System of National and Regional Accounts (ESA 2010) should be revised:

• to include in the ESA aspects related to globalisation, digitalisation, well-being and sustainability, which are currently not explicitly included and for which there is a strong demand from users – this is essential to preserve the relevance of the ESA framework for analytical and policy purposes and for its administrative uses in the EU,
• preserve alignment with international standards and the SNA, as well as the comparability of data with third country economies, and
• ensure consistency with balance of payments statistics

In his view, conceptual work at global level is well advanced and EU member states are fully aware of the likely changes to international standards, with several of them participating in the updating work.

The overall aim of the project is to revise ESA 2010 in order to adapt the national accounts established in the EU to the new economic environment, advances in methodological research and user needs.

It is therefore essential to have a new regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the European System of National and Regional Accounts in the European Union. The new regulation should not immediately repeal Regulation (EU) No 549/2013, since ESA 2010 will have to be maintained in parallel for several years for administrative purposes, as happened in the past when ESA 2010 was introduced.

The revised ESA should be the appropriate methodological reference for producing high-quality national accounts data needed to support the implementation of important EU policies.
The revision will also be the occasion to improve the ESA 2010 standards, making them more orientated towards the various uses in the EU.

ESA-based national accounts are an essential tool at European level, used for important administrative purposes (e.g. own resources).

important administrative purposes (e.g. own resources, excessive deficit procedure, structural funds) and to analyse the coordination and convergence of Member States’ economic policies.

In order to achieve the objectives set out in the Treaty on European Union, the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and more specifically the Union and, more specifically, the objectives of Economic and Monetary Union, the ESA provides EU institutions, governments and economic and social operators with a set of harmonised and reliable statistics on which to base their decisions.

The planned regulation will cover the transmission of Member States’ national accounts data to the Commission, as well as the methodological framework of the data, thus ensuring comparability between Member States.

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