European business statistics

The Committee on Industry, Research and Energy adopted the report by Janusz LEWANDOWSKI (EPP, PL) on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics, amending Regulation (EC) No 184/2005 and repealing 10 legal acts in the field of business statistics.

As a reminder, the objective of the proposed new framework Regulation is to integrate, streamline and simplify statistical requirements and legal acts for business statistics.

The committee recommended that the European Parliament’s position adopted at first reading under the ordinary legislative procedure should amend the Commission proposal as follows:

Simplification: Member stressed the need to simplify the collection of statistics from European businesses to the greatest extent possible. The European business statistics system shall factor in the latest digital developments at the time when the instruments and methods for collecting statistics are being established.

Statistical coverage: harmonised statistics shall cover climate change and resource efficiency, research and development, innovation and the information society and cover both market and non-market activities.

Statistics collected from businesses shall also cover:

• labour market developments including statistics on labour costs, working conditions, earnings and the ratio between the management wage and the wage of the bottom 10% of workers, as well as on the number of occupied and vacant posts in order to contribute to achieving the targets of the European Pillar of Social Rights;
• the circular economy in order to support the Union's policy action to develop a sustainable, low carbon, resource efficient and competitive economy in Member States and the Union. The feasibility of collecting the additional information needed for this purpose should be assessed by the Commission by means of a pilot study before being legislated and better integrated with other statistics;
• international trade in services: in this regard, as a priority, the Commission shall launch a pilot study that will cover the modes of supply of international trade in services and the international trade in services by enterprise characteristics.

Reduce the administrative burden: additional costs and administrative burdens on businesses, in particular on SMEs, and on Member States shall be minimised.

When preparing such implementing acts potential extra costs and administrative burdens on Member States or on the respondent shall be taken into account together with an estimate of the projected increase of statistical quality and any other direct or indirect benefit resulting from the additional proposed action.

Confidentiality: the transmission of confidential data between national statistical authorities and the Commission (Eurostat) shall take place to the extent that such transmission is necessary exclusively for statistical purposes for the production of European statistics.

Lastly, the power to adopt delegated acts shall be conferred on the Commission for a period of five years which may be tacitly extended.