For the purpose of the Member States' reports to the Commission under the excessive deficit procedure laid down in Council Regulation (EC) No 3605/93 (1), “Government deficit” is the balancing item “net borrowing/net lending” of General Government, including streams of interest payments resulting from swaps arrangements and forward rate agreements. This balancing item is codified as EDPB9. For this purpose, interest includes the abovementioned flows and is codified as EDPD41.