9.7.2002 Official Journal of the European Communities L179/1 (Acts whose publication is obligatory) REGULATION (EC) No 1221/2002 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 10 June 2002 on quarterly non-financial accounts for general government THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION, Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular Article 285 thereof, Having regard to the proposal from the Commission ('), Having regard to the opinion of the European Central Bank (), Acting in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 251 of the Treaty (), Whereas: 1 Council Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 of 25 June 1996 on the European system of national and regional accounts in the Community (%), (ESA 95), contains the reference framework of common standards, definitions, classifications and accounting rules for drawing up the accounts of the Member States for the statistical require- ments of the Community, in order to obtain comparable results between Member States. The report by the Monetary Committee on information requirements, endorsed by the Ecofin Council on 18 January 1999, underlined that, for the proper func- tioning of economic and monetary union and the single market, effective surveillance and coordination of economic policies are of major importance and that this requires a comprehensive statistical information system providing policy-makers with the necessary data on which to base their decisions. That report also stated that a high priority should be given to short-term public finance statistics for Member States, in particular those participating in economic and monetary union, and that the objective was the compilation of simplified quarterly non-financial accounts for the general government sector resulting from a step-by-step approach. () O] C 154 E, 29.5.2001, p. 300. () O] C 131, 3.5.2001, p. 6. (}) Opinion of the European Parliament of 3 July 2001 (O] C 65 E, 14.3.2002, p. 33) and Council Decision of 7 May 2002. () OJ L 310, 30.11.1996, p. 1. Regulation as last amended by Regula- tion (EC) No 359/2002 (O] L 58, 28.2.2002, p. 1). 3) 0) () o] o] It is appropriate to define simplified quarterly non-finan- cial accounts for general government by reference to the list of ESA 95 categories of government expenditure and revenue defined in Commission Regulation (EC) No 1500/2000 of 10 July 2000 implementing Council Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 with respect to general government expenditure and revenue (). Priority in the step-by-step approach was given to taxes, actual social contributions and social benefits other than social transfers in kind, as categories representing reliable indicators of trends in public finances that are already available on time (first step). The transmission of this first set of categories on a quar- terly basis, from June 2000, in all Member States is covered by Commission Regulation (EC) No 264/2000 of 3 February 2000 on the implementation of Council Regulation (EC) No 222396 with respect to short-term public finance statistics (°). It is necessary to supplement the first step with another set of categories in order to obtain the full list of cate- gories constituting general government expenditure and revenue. The reliability of quarterly data provided under this Regulation with regard to annual data should be assessed. A report on the quality of the quarterly data should therefore be made before the end of 2005. Articles 2 and 3 of Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 lay down the conditions under which the Commission may adopt amendments to the ESA 95 methodology in order to clarify and improve its content. The compilation of quarterly non-financial accounts for general government will require additional resources in Member States. Their transmission to the Commission cannot therefore be dealt with in a Commission Decision. ’ L 172,12.7.2000, p. 3. 4. L 29, 4.2.2000, p.