The European Parliament adopted by 555 votes to 42, with 23 abstentions, a legislative resolution on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on statistics on agricultural input and output and repealing Regulations (EC) No 1165/2008, (EC) No 543/2009, (EC) No 1185/2009 and Council Directive 96/16/EC.
The European Parliament's position adopted at first reading under the ordinary legislative procedure amends the Commission proposal as follows:
Subject
The Regulation establishes an integrated framework for aggregated European statistics on agricultural inputs and products, as well as on their intermediate use in agriculture, their collection and processing.
The amended text stressed that a transparent, comprehensive and reliable statistical knowledge base is necessary for the development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the Union's policies relating to agriculture, in particular the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), as well as the Union's policies on, inter alia environment, climate change adaptation and mitigation, land use, regions, public health, food safety, plant protection, sustainable use of pesticides, use of veterinary medicinal products and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
The Regulation stressed the importance of harmonised, high quality, coherent and comparable data to assess the situation and trends of agricultural inputs and products in the Union, in order to provide relevant and accurate data on the environmental and economic consequences of agriculture and on the pace of the transition to more sustainable agricultural practices.
Regular data requirements
Statistics on the inputs and outputs of agricultural activities will cover the following areas and themes:
(a) statistics on livestock production;
(b) statistics on crop production;
(c) statistics on agricultural prices;
(d) statistics on nutrients;
(e) statistics on plant protection products.
The detailed topics, their transmission frequencies and corresponding reference periods as well as their organic farming and regional dimensions are set out in the Annex.
Coverage requirements
For the topic of nutrients in agricultural fertilisers, the amended text specifies that the data should cover fertilisers and 95% of the total utilised agricultural area, excluding kitchen gardens, of each Member State, together with the corresponding production volumes.
For the detailed topic of use of plant protection products in agriculture, the data should cover at least 85% of the use in agricultural activity by professional users in each Member State. The data from each Member State shall relate to a list of crops including a part common to all Member States. This common part shall cover, together with permanent grassland, at least 75% of the total utilised agricultural area at Union level.
The coverage of agricultural use will be increased to 95% from the reference year following the date of entry into force of the Union legislation requiring professional users of plant protection products to submit their records on the use of these products to the national competent authorities in electronic format.
Ad hoc data requirements
The Commission may adopt delegated acts to supplement the Regulation by specifying the information to be provided on an ad hoc basis by Member States, where it is deemed necessary to collect new information to meet additional statistical needs.
Sources
In order to obtain statistics on agricultural inputs and outputs, Member States will use administrative data sources based on national law, other sources, methods or innovative approaches, such as digital tools and remote sensors.
Reference period
The information collected under the Regulation will cover a single reference period common to all Member States and will relate to the situation during a specific period. The reference period for each detailed topic is that indicated in the Annex. The first reporting periods will start in the calendar year 2025.
Feasibility and pilot studies
Where new regular data requirements or the need for major improvements to the current regular data requirements are identified, the Commission (Eurostat) may launch feasibility studies to evaluate, where necessary: the availability and quality of appropriate new data sources; the development and implementation of new statistical techniques; the financial impact on and burden on respondents.
The Commission (Eurostat) will disseminate online and free of charge the data transmitted to it under the Regulation.
Subsidies
Member States and the EU will provide funding to support the implementation of the Regulation. A financial contribution from the Union is therefore foreseen in the form of grants from the Single Market Programme established by Regulation (EU) 2021/690 of the European Parliament and the Council.
Transitional regime for data on the detailed topic of use of plant protection products in agriculture
For the years 2025, 2026 and 2027, the following transitional rules will apply for the detailed topic of use of plant protection products in agriculture. In this regard, Parliament and the Council made a joint statement on the importance of establishing in all Member States a register kept by the national competent authorities on the use of plant protection products in agriculture.