Annexes to COM(2015)125 - Communication to the EP concerning the Council's position on amending Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics

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dossier COM(2015)125 - Communication to the EP concerning the Council's position on amending Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics.
document COM(2015)125 EN
date March 10, 2015
agreement reached between the European Parliament and the Council on 3 December 2014 and includes elements proposed by both institutions. The Commission supports this agreement.

The main amendments included in this position, as compared to the Commission's proposal, are the following:

For the specific situation of NSIs, amendments are made that limit the scope of the statistical decision-taking power of the Heads of NSIs as proposed by the Commission, notably to matters within their own institutions. Furthermore, the provision on professional independence is extended to cover, in addition to Heads of NSIs, also the ‘statistical heads of other national authorities’.

For the specific situation of Eurostat, an additional Article is introduced, largely based on elements already provided for in the Commission Decision on Eurostat (2012/504/EU), that focusses on the professional independence of the Director General of Eurostat to ensure correspondence with the respective provisions applying to Heads of NSIs. The compromise formalises, in particular, that a statistical dialogue will enable every year for a direct exchange of views between the Director-General of EUROSTAT and the relevant Committee of the European Parliament on statistical matters.

The provision on establishment by Member States of ‘Commitments on Confidence in Statistics’ is weakened but combined with a more detailed description of the applicable monitoring and reporting process by the Commission.

In response to the European Parliament's request for stronger quality monitoring and enforcement, provisions have been introduced foreseeing publication of Commission’s concerns regarding the quality of national contributions to European statistics and recalling the possibility for the Commission to conduct investigations on suspected misrepresentation of statistical data, provided that fines are applicable in such cases by virtue of sectoral legislation.

Finally, additional references to the cooperation between the European Statistical System and the European System of Central Banks on compilation of European statistics have been added.

4. Conclusion

The Commission accepts the results of the inter-institutional negotiations and can therefore support the Council's position at first reading.

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