Brussels, 17/10/2014 (Agence Europe) - The EU's statistical office, Eurostat, will publish for the first time on Tuesday 21 October figures for 2010-2013 for deficit and public debt within the European Union, the eurozone and each member state, figures drawn up using the new national and regional accounting system, SEC 2010.
The new system includes improved statistics, such as updated population figures, and is in line with statistical changes made at global level. It leads to a change in the GDP calculation for most EU member states, but makes virtually no change to growth figures. In 2010, the impact of SEC 2010 on average annual GDP in the EU and eurozone was 3.7% and 3.5% respectively. At member state level, the impact varies widely from one country to the next: +9.5% for Cyprus, +7.6% for the Netherlands, +0.2% for Luxembourg and -0.1% for Latvia.
Eurostat says the main changes in methodology impacting on GDP are expenditure on research and development (which will affect EU28 GDP by 1.9%) and arms spending, which is now included in investment figures (impact on EU 28 GDP of 0.2%). (MB)