Abstract

Eurostat is the statistical office of the European Union (EU), responsible for calculating EU aggregates and publishing high-quality statistics for the EU. Asymmetries in BOP are a long-standing phenomenon and occur whenever a cross-border transaction reported by one country is not aligned with the reported figure by the counterpart country. Large and persistent asymmetries reduce the credibility of official statistics and thus hindering the user from making good use of them. Eurostat regularly monitors Intra-EU and Extra-EU asymmetries for specific BOP items.
Eurostat shares the annual progress report on asymmetries with EU countries and publishes also a biennial BOP quality report for each EU Member State that scrutinizes discrepancies and large bilateral asymmetries vis a vis all other EU countries for selected BOP items like services, compensation of employees, personal transfers (remittances) and direct investment activities. Apart from participating in global initiatives, Eurostat also organizes workshops on asymmetries for services and personal transfers (remittances).
Cross-border transactions recorded in BOP should be in theory harmonized with the respective values in National Accounts (NA). Together with the ECB Eurostat releases an annual report that highlights and analyses at Member State level the inconsistencies between NA and BOP published data.
Especially for services, Eurostat launched the Asymmetries Resolution Mechanism (ARM) for International Trade in Services statistics (ITSS) in April 2022. The core aim of the ITSS-ARM is to go beyond reporting asymmetries and resolve major cases of intra-EU bilateral asymmetries, thereby reducing the overall asymmetries in the published ITSS data. Considering the large number of asymmetry cases, Eurostat developed a data-driven scoreboard methodology to prioritize specific bilateral ITSS asymmetries, aiming at participation of all EU countries A balanced approached was initially adopted to foster a culture on “addressing asymmetries” among Member States. At first, 24 asymmetry cases were selected, and trilateral technical meetings were organised, where the two countries involved try to identify the root cause of the asymmetry, while Eurostat provides methodological and technical assistance. The asymmetry cases monitored by the ITSS-ARM show considerable improvement compared to the non-monitored cases.
Eurostat implemented several additional tools to support Member States in the resolution process. A secure environment for microdata exchange was set up, and an Early Warning System was developed for annual ITSS data to highlight the largest and most probable asymmetry cases, several months ahead of the data transmission, using Quarterly BOP data. Also, handbook on ITSS asymmetries is currently being drafted. Finally, within the digital era, efforts are made to identify future data sources that could increase the quality of European statistics while minimizing the reporting burden for enterprises.