The Commission presented its fourth and last report on
the implementation of a Programme for the Modernisation of European
Enterprise and Trade Statistics (MEETS).
Three reports have been published, covering the annual
work programmes 2009 and 2010, 2011 and 2012. This report gives a
final assessment of the implementation of the MEETS
programme.
Level of participation and financing: the report notes that by the end of 2013, most
projects had been finalised and most deliverables submitted. Over
the period 2009-2013, the MEETS programme provided funding worth
EUR 42.5 million to support development within several
business and trade-related areas of statistics. The level of
implementation of MEETS operational credits during that period was
87%.
Collaborative networks in the European Statistical
System Networks (ESSnets), were a major means of implementing the
objectives of the programme. In all, 23 out of 32 ESS members took
part in at least one MEETS-financed ESSnet over the five years of
the programme. Funding was also provided for individual grant
agreements concluded with National Statistical Institutes (NSIs),
and for some external studies carried out by contractors. By the
end of 2013, 28 out of 32 members of the ESS had taken part in at
least one of the individual grants of the MEETS
programme.
Implementation of objectives: the MEETS programme was structured to achieve the
following four main objectives, each of which included several
projects:
(1) Reviewing priorities and develop target sets of
indicators for new areas:
- In 2009, an external study was commissioned to
evaluate the legal acts in statistical areas that were identified
as needing revision.
- In 2010, the ESS Committee adopted a new
strategy-driven approach. Areas of lesser importance in business
and trade statistics were identified during the annual strategic
review of Eurostat’s priorities. Consequently, the action
‘Identifying areas of lesser importance’ was removed from
the scope of the MEETS programme. The 2010 review resulted in the
MEETS programme being streamlined, and several actions were
merged.
- Following the streamlining of MEETS, further
methodological work and the organisation of a pilot data collection
were taken over by the ‘ESSnet on profiling of large and
complex multinational enterprise groups’ as well as the
‘ESSnet on measuring global value chains’.
- The joint Entrepreneurship Indicator Programme (EIP)
was developed in cooperation with the OECD to underpin policies
related to entrepreneurship with indicators describing the areas of
‘access to finance’, ‘R&D’,
‘innovation and technology’,
‘capabilities/skills’ and ‘culture for
entrepreneurship’.
- The inclusion of mandatory indicators for high-growth
innovative enterprises in the legal framework of employer business
demography is currently under development.
(2) Achieving a streamlined framework of
business-related statistics:
- The ESSnet proposed revised draft definitions of the
statistical units ‘enterprise’, ‘enterprises
group’, ‘kind-of-activity unit’ and ‘local
kind-of-activity unit’ together with operational rules and a
data model to enforce a uniform implementation.
- Other results of this ESSnet are recommendations for a
method to classify statistical units applied in a comparable manner
over all statistical domains, and comparable breakdowns as well as
a methodology for a frame population in business
statistics.
- The aim of the EuroGroups Register (EGR) was to provide consistent, coordinated survey frames
for producing quality statistics measuring globalisation, mainly
for Foreign Affiliates Statistics and Foreign Direct Investments.
In 2009, the ESSnet on EGR methodology set up EGR version 1.0 as
well as the organisational network for data exchange between
Eurostat and ESS members.
- The ESSnet on profiling of large and complex
multinational enterprise groups developed a methodology and
guidelines.
- Lastly, some methodologies for EU sampling schemes
were developed for selected business statistics domains such as
space-related activities including e.g. space transport, structural
business statistics for enterprises with 250-499 employees, outward
Foreign Affiliates Statistics, ICT investment and expenditure and
culture statistics.
(3) Supporting the implementation of a more efficient
method of producing enterprise and trade
statistics:
- The work on ‘data warehousing and data linking in
the production of business statistics’ was carried out by an
ESSnet set up in 2010.
- In 2013, ESS members developed and compiled an
extended set of indicators based on trade and business micro
data.
- Based on the results of these actions, the
‘ESSnet on measuring global value chains’ was set up in
2011. The ESSnet further developed and implemented a redesigned
survey on international sourcing followed by micro-data linking
exercises with existing statistical data (structural business
statistics, foreign trade, foreign affiliates
statistics).
- The project ‘linking data from ICT usage,
innovation, structural business statistics and business
registers’ was conducted from 2011 to 2013.
- The ‘ESSnet on the use of administrative and
accounts data’ was launched in 2009 and investigated practical
issues regarding use of these data for business statistics
purposes.
(4) Modernising Intrastat: work focused on the harmonisation of methods to
improve quality under a simplified Intrastat, the improvement and
simplification of intra-EU trade statistics and the better use of
administrative data — VAT (Value Added Tax) and VIES (Value
Added Tax Information Exchange).
Conclusions: the
benefits of the MEETS programme for the Union, Member States,
providers and users of related statistics are difficult to
quantify, as returns on investments will only materialise
gradually over time. Without the MEETS programme, some Member
States would have invested budget in the modernisation of business
and trade statistics in an uncoordinated way. This would
have produced results that would not have been comparable to those
in other EU Member States, making aggregation to European
aggregates problematic.
In the framework of the programmes, some new, more
cost-effective data collection systems (by linking existing data
and alternative ways of collecting data other than traditional
surveys) were tested in a number of Member States with the aim of
creating models applicable for all.
Lastly, as direct follow-up to the MEETS programme,
Eurostat has launched a fundamental revision and integration of
business-related statistics via a common legal framework for
collecting, compiling, transmitting and disseminating statistics on
the economic activities of the business sector, FRIBS.
As part of FRIBS, Eurostat’s aim is to reform
Intrastat by means of the so-called
international trade package or Single Market Statistics (SIMSTAT).
Special attention will be given to smaller EU Member States. This
tackles the simplification of Intrastat and the quality of related
statistical data.