Community statistics on migration and international protection

2005/0156(COD)

The European Parliament adopted a resolution drafted by Ewa Klamt (Germany, EPP-ED) by 544 votes in favour to 19 against with 56 abstentions, and made some amendments to the proposal. These amendments are the result of informal agreement between the Parliament, Council and Commission. The main ones are as follows:

- The Regulation does not cover estimates of the number of persons illegally resident in the Member States. Member States should not provide such estimates or data on those who are illegally resident to the Commission (Eurostat), although such persons may be included in population stocks due to surveys.

- Wherever possible, the definitions used for the purposes of the Regulation are taken from the United Nations Recommendations on Statistics of International Migration, the United Nations Recommendations for the Censuses of Population and Housing in the ECE Region or EC legislation, and should be updated following the relevant procedures. Several new definitions are inserted including “citizenship” “country of birth” and “external borders”.

- The Commission will have power to update the definitions and to decide on the groupings of data and additional disaggregations. Since those measures are of general scope and are designed to amend non-essential elements and supplement the Regulation by the addition of new non-essential elements, they will be adopted in accordance with the regulatory procedure with scrutiny laid down to in Article 5a of Decision 1999/468/EC.

- Member States shall report to the Commission (Eurostat) on the use and probable effects of estimations or other methods of adapting statistics based on national definitions to comply with the harmonised definitions in the Regulation.

- For the reference year 2008, the statistics supplied Eurostat under the Regulation may be based on alternative (national) definitions. In such cases, Member States shall notify Eurostat of these alternative definitions.

- Parliament inserted a number of new groups on which statistics must be supplied. These include persons covered by first instance decisions regarding granting or withdrawing refugee status, subsidiary protection status, temporary protection, and authorisation to stay.

- Changes were also made to the provisions on statistics on returns and disagreggations, as well as on implementing measures.