Statistics on the trading of goods between Member States, Intrastat: common framework

The Commission accepts the five amendments proposed by the European Parliament. They concern the following: - the list which is to be drawn up by the Commission of goods which shall be excluded must satisfy certain methodological criteria. The Commission will indeed have to take account of international recommendations designed to ensure that trade statistics are comparable at world level; - lowering the requirements in terms of trade coverage at a detailed level, from 98% to 97% will lighten the administrative burden on a large number of enterprises and will have only a marginal impact on the quality of the statistics. The loss of information at detailed level will be compensated for at aggregated level by the new rules on adjustment; - conditions to be defined by the Commission relating to the simplification of information on small transactions must satisfy the quality requirements; - the confidentiality of the data and making it explicit that the ultimate decision rests with the national authorities, after they have examined requests from enterprises. This amendment is important for certain Member States where the issue of data confidentiality is highly sensitive; - supplementing a provision which makes the Commission competent to define the content of the aggregated results to be transmitted by the Member States. Like other, similar provisions, it stipulates that the Commission will be assisted in that task by a Committee set up under the Regulation. In this way, it avoids confusion by defining the framework in which the Commission is required to present its draft.�