The European Parliament adopted by 625 votes 37, with 34 abstentions, a legislative resolution on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EC) No 138/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards regional economic accounts for agriculture.
The proposed amendment to Regulation (EC) No 138/2004 aims at integrating the REAA into the current legal framework for European Economic Accounts for Agriculture (EAA) statistics as regards both the methodology and the appropriate deadlines for data transmission.
The European Parliament's position adopted at first reading under the ordinary legislative procedure amends the Commission's proposal as follows:
Regional statistical data
The amended text stressed that high-quality statistical regional-level data are a central tool for the implementation, monitoring, evaluation, review and assessment of the economic, environmental and social impact of policies related to agriculture in the Union, in particular the common agricultural policy (‘CAP’), including rural development measures, the CAP´s new delivery model and national Strategic Plans, as well as Union policies relating to, inter alia, the environment, climate change, biodiversity, the circular economy, land use, balanced and sustainable regional development, public health, animal welfare, food safety and security and the United Nations sustainable development goals.
Date of data transmission
The amending Regulation stipulates that the first transmission of data for the regional economic accounts for agriculture at NUTS 2 level within the meaning of Regulation (EC) No 1059/2003 on the establishment of a common classification of territorial units for statistics will take place no later than 30 September 2023.
Dissemination of statistics
Without prejudice to Regulation (EC) No 1367/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the application of the provisions of the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters to Community institutions and bodies and Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European Statistics, the Commission (Eurostat) will disseminate the data transmitted to it online, free of charge.
Quality assessment
The Commission (Eurostat) will assess the quality of the data transmitted. To this end, Member States will transmit a quality report to the Commission (Eurostat), for the first time by 31 December ... [the year starting 1 January following 24 months after the date of entry into force of this amending Regulation], and every five years thereafter, for the data sets transmitted during the reporting period.
The Commission will, by means of implementing acts, define the modalities, structure and indicators for the evaluation of the quality reports. These implementing acts should not impose significant additional costs or burden on Member States.
Derogations
Where the compilation of the REAA requires major adaptations to the national statistical system of a Member State, the Commission may adopt implementing acts to grant derogations to that Member State for a maximum period of two years. However, the first data transmission date for REAA will not be later than 30 September 2025.
The EU may provide financial contributions from the general budget of the Union to the national statistical institutes and other national authorities to cover the costs of implementing the Regulation where the establishment of REAA requires major adaptations to the national statistical system of a Member State.
Transparency
The amended text emphasises that collecting the same information more than once, thus creating redundancy in the data reporting, should be avoided. Details of the specific method and sources shall be set out in full transparency in the quality reports, indicating which regional data have been collected directly and which data are based on national data with regional breakdowns based on assumptions.