Committee on Monetary, Financial and Balance of Payments Statistics
CMFB, in the context of European statistics, stands for Committee on Monetary, Financial and Balance of Payments Statistics. Originally established in 1991, the Committee is an advisory committee for the European Commission and European Central Bank and a platform for cooperation between the statistical and central banking community in Europe.
Main tasks
The Commission, on its own initiative, and, should the occasion arise, following a request from the Council or from the committees which assist them, shall consult the Committee on:- the establishment of multiannual Community programmes for monetary, financial and balance of payments statistics;
- the measures which the Commission intends to undertake to achieve the objectives referred to in the multiannual programmes for monetary, financial and balance of payments statistics and the resources and timetables involved;
- any other question, in particular questions of methodology, arising from the establishment or implementation of the Statistical Programme in the relevant fields.
CMFB opinions
The CMFB's main output is its opinion, adopted by a majority of its members, according to the applicable rules of procedure.Below is a list of the most recent and relevant opinions that the Committee has concluded, upon the request of one or more EU Member States:
| 27 June 2019 | CMFB opinion on the proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing the Programme for single market, competitiveness of enterprises, including small and medium-sized enterprises, and European statistics |
| 13 May 2019 | CMFB opinion on the amendment of the Eurostat Manual on Government Deficit and Debt, 2019 edition |
| 31 October 2018 | CMFB opinion on the statistical treatment of asset partitioning in Energy Performance Contracts |
| 25 September 2018 | CMFB Opinion on the recording of Euro coins in national accounts |
| 13 July 2017 | CMFB opinion on the statistical classification of the Hungarian Export-Import Bank |
| 12 September 2016 | CMFB opinion on re-shaping the connection between business statistics and BOP-IIP |
| 13 May 2016 | CMFB opinion on the principles for re-shaping the connection between business statistics and BoP/IIP |
The CMFB's advisory role in the EU's Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP">Excessive deficit procedure">EDP)
- The format of the questionnaires shall be defined by the Commission after consultation of the Committee on Monetary, Financial and Balance of Payments Statistics.
- The inventories shall be prepared in accordance with guidelines adopted by the Commission after consultation of CMFB.
- In the event of a doubt regarding the correct implementation of the ESA 95 accounting rules, the Member State concerned shall request clarification from the Commission. The Commission shall promptly examine the issue and communicate its clarification to the Member State concerned and, when appropriate, to the CMFB.
- For cases which are either complex or of general interest in the view of the Commission or the Member State concerned, the Commission shall take a decision after consultation of the CMFB. The Commission shall make decisions public, together with the opinion of the CMFB, without prejudice to the provisions relating to statistical confidentiality of Regulation No 322/97.
The CMFB's role in ensuring the quality of statistics underlying the EU's Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure (MIP">Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure">MIP)
As the statistics underlying MIP indicators are compiled, depending on domain, either or both by both the European Statistical System and the European System of Central Banks within their respective spheres of competence, the two systems continuously cooperate statistical quality assurance mechanisms to ensure that these statistics are reliable and comparable across Member States. According to the Memorandum of Understanding between the ESS and the ESCB, the Committee on monetary, financial and balance of payments statistics is the operational platform for such cooperation.
The CMFB, starting 2013, developed a three level quality assurance framework for the statistics underlying the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure and published the related quality reports.