The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development adopted a report drafted by Elisabeth JEGGLE (EPP-ED, DE), and amended the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning crop statistics.
The main amendments – in the framework of the consultation procedure – are as follows :
Purpose of the Regulation: members wanted the reference to land use to be deleted, given that such information will already be available to the Commission in 2010, 2013 and 2016 pursuant to the Regulation on farm structure surveys and the survey on agricultural production methods and repealing Council Regulation no.571/88.
Definitions: definitions should not be included as part of the Annex but should be included in the main part of the Regulation, more specifically in the article on definitions.
Variables with a low prevalence: Member States shall inform the commission of their definition off low prevalence. Members felt that the Commission and Member States should know when exactly exclusion from the statistics is possible and can be applied.
Precision: precision requirements should not be included in a foot-note as part of the Annex but should be included in the main part of the Regulation. Furthermore it is proposed to raise the variation coefficients from 3 to 4 % in order to keep the costs and administrative burdens for Member States within reasonable limits.
Evaluation of the report's quality: every three years, and for the first time 21 months (rather than 18 months) after the date of application of the Regulation, Member States shall provide the Commission (Eurostat) with a report on the quality of the data transmitted making reference to the quality assessment dimensions.
Comitology: Members considered that the regulatory procedure with scrutiny should be applied to the data covered by the Regulation, the modalities and the structure of the quality reports.
Reduce the burden on respondents: the committee inserted a provision which states that where administrative sources are used, Member States shall inform the Commission in advance about methods used and the quality of data from such sources. Furthermore, consideration shall be given to the principle that additional costs and burdens remain within reasonable limits.