The Commission (Eurostat) shall maintain the list of experts in national accounting on the basis of proposals sent to it by the national authorities responsible for excessive deficit procedure (EDP) reporting. The list shall be updated on a regular basis.

Experts in national accounting shall be specialised in EDP reporting and statistics. They shall support the Commission EDP experts carrying out visits to a Member State. In this capacity, the experts in national accounting shall provide independent expertise and shall not represent the points of view of their Member State.

The Commission (Eurostat) shall select, for the exceptional visits where it is deemed appropriate, one or more national experts to accompany its own experts on the visit. The experts shall be selected from the list in such a manner that the same expert shall not be chosen to carry out a visit more than three times every three years.

The amount to be paid to reimburse travel expenses, the daily accommodation allowance and the daily flat-rate allowance shall be calculated in accordance with the Commission Decision of 5 December 2007 on the rules on the reimbursement of expenses incurred by people from outside the Commission invited to attend meetings in an expert capacity.

Prior to the visit, the accompanying expert shall be required to sign a confidentiality statement concerning the content, timing and practical organisation of the visit.