Economic accounts for EU agriculture – consultation on draft legislation underway

By August 23, 2024. The European Commission (EC) invites all interested parties to express their opinions and comments and submit proposals as part of an ongoing consultation. The topic is economic accounts for European Union (EU) agriculture. The purpose of the proposal under consultation is to codify Regulation (EC) No. 138/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of December 5, 2003. concerning the economic accounts for agriculture in the Community, which has been amended several times since its publication. The new regulation just being drafted will replace existing legislation in this area.

As the EC points out, the proposal preserves the content of the acts, gathering them into one document and making the formal changes that result from the codification itself. The EC will compile a summary of all submitted opinions and then present them to the European Parliament and the Council as input to the legislative debate. The results of the consultation will be published 8 weeks after it closes.

Economic accounts for agriculture

Economic accounts for agriculture are an essential tool for analyzing the economic situation in agriculture in EU countries, provided that they are compiled on the basis of the same principles and from the same range of data.

The main purpose of economic accounts for agriculture is to analyze the production process and the primary income created by this process. Of course, as the proposal indicates, there is a difference between income generated by agricultural production and that of agricultural households, as the latter may have other sources of income besides agricultural income. Moreover, as the proposal points out, monitoring and evaluation of the Common Agricultural Policy requires comparable, updated and reliable information on the economic situation in agriculture, including changes in agricultural income.

EU regulations governing economic accounts for agriculture

Amended several times, Regulation (EC) No. 138/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of December 5, 2003. concerning the economic accounts for agriculture in the Community is the basic provision relating to this area of activity. Regulation (EC) No. 223/2009, on the other hand, provides the legal framework for European statistics and requires Member States to comply with statistical principles and quality criteria for the data collected and compiled, including those relating to economic accounts.

Proposals for unification of regulations relating to economic accounts for agriculture

Since the rules relating to economic accounts for EU agriculture have been amended several times, there was a need to harmonize them. Proceedings in such a case must be undertaken in full compliance with the traditional procedure for adopting EU acts.

At the same time, in view of the need for member countries to provide comparable information, one of the goals of the proposed amendments harmonizing the regulations relating to economic accounts for agriculture is to create common statistical standards that will allow the construction of harmonized data sets. Today, statistics are no longer treated as one of many sources of information for policy-making, but play a central role in the decision-making process.

Scope of the proposal for a regulation on economic accounts for agriculture in the EU

The consulted proposal was drawn up on the basis of a preliminary consolidation of Regulation (EC) No. 138/2004 and the acts amending it, prepared by the Publications Office of the European Union using a data processing system. Where articles have been given new numbers, the correlation between the old and new numbering is set forth in the table attached as Annex IV to the unified draft regulation.

The consulted draft regulation establishes rules for agricultural economic accounts (EAA) in the EU and specifies:

1. EAA methodologies (common standards, definitions, classifications and accounting rules) for use in the development of accounts on a comparable basis for EU purposes and for data reporting;
2. Deadlines for submission of data on agricultural accounts, developed in accordance with the EAA methodology.

However, the draft regulation indicates that no member state is required to use the EAA methodology in compiling agricultural accounts for its own purposes.

Rules proposed in the draft regulation

Member States will be required to provide the EC (Eurostat) with the data specified in Annex II to the draft regulation within the deadlines indicated in the annex. Eurostat will then disseminate the transmitted data free of charge on the Internet.

It will be up to EU member states to take the necessary measures to ensure the quality of the data and metadata reported. In addition, by December 31, 2025, and every five years thereafter, member states will be required to provide Eurostat with a report on the quality of data from the reporting period. The draft regulation also specifies derogations. The draft regulation will enter into force on the 20th day after its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.