The European Parliament, having taken note of the proposal for a directive sent to it for information purposes, called on the Commission to consider the following amendments:
- change of legal basis: the European Parliament added Article 100A to the article proposed by the Commission (Article 213) and deleted all references to Parliament's opinion (as this was not an opinion by the European Parliament in the strict sense of the term);
- it proposed adding a heading on employment in the tourist sector (including seasonal employment) to the areas in which data is collected, using a NUTS II regional breakdown;
- the European Parliament proposed that all users should have access to the results of the statistics. The Commission would monitor the accuracy of the data provided by ensuring that Member States complied with their obligations and then sending a report to the European Parliament;
- as far as transitional periods pending full transmission of data are concerned, the European Parliament proposed reducing the transitional period for providing monthly and annual data from 3 to 2 years and the period for quarterly data from 5 to 3 years. At the same time, the European Parliament deleted the paragraph stating that 1997 would be the first observation period for quarterly information.
The Community would underwrite part of the cost incurred by national statistics offices in adapting their individual systems during the transitional period.�