Council Directive 93/23/EEC of 1 June 1993 on the statistical surveys to be carried out on pig production (2), Council Directive 93/24/EEC of 1 June 1993 on the statistical surveys to be carried out on bovine animal production (3) and Council Directive 93/25/EEC of 1 June 1993 on the statistical surveys to be carried out on sheep and goat stocks (4) have been amended several times. Further amendments and simplifications now being necessary, these acts should, for reasons of clarity, be replaced by one single act.
(2)
In order to ensure that the common agricultural policy is properly administered, particularly where the beef, veal, pigmeat, sheepmeat, goatmeat and poultrymeat markets are concerned, the Commission requires regular data on trends in livestock and meat production.
(3)
Council Regulation (EEC) No 571/88 of 29 February 1988 on the organisation of Community surveys on the structure of agricultural holdings (5) provides for a programme of Community surveys to produce statistics on the structure of agricultural holdings up to 2007.
(4)
In accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1059/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 May 2003 on the establishment of a common classification of territorial units for statistics (NUTS) (6), all Member States' statistics transmitted to the Commission which are broken down by territorial units are to use the NUTS classification. Consequently, in order to establish comparable regional statistics, the territorial units should be defined in accordance with the NUTS classification.
(5)
In order to limit the burden on Member States, regional data requirements should not exceed the requirements established by previous legislation (unless new regional levels have come into existence in the meantime) and regional data should be optional when regional livestock numbers are below certain thresholds.
(6)
In order to facilitate implementation of this Regulation, close cooperation is necessary between Member States and the Commission and this may be achieved in particular with the assistance of the Standing Committee for Agricultural Statistics set up by Council Decision 72/279/EEC (7).
(7)
In order to ensure a smooth transition from the regime applicable under Directives 93/23/EEC, 93/24/EEC and 93/25/EEC, this Regulation should allow for the granting of a derogation for a period of up to one year and, in the case of sheep and goats, up to two years, to Member States where application of this Regulation to their national statistical systems would require major adaptations and would be likely to cause significant practical problems.
(8)
The measures for the production of statistics provided for in this Regulation are necessary for carrying out the activities of the Community. Since the objective of this Regulation, namely the establishment of a common legal framework for the systematic production of Community statistics on livestock and meat in Member States, cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States and can therefore be better achieved at Community level, the Community may adopt measures, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity as set out in Article 5 of the Treaty. In accordance with the principle of proportionality, as set out in that Article, this Regulation does not go beyond what is necessary to achieve that objective.
(9)
In accordance with Council Regulation (EC) No 322/97 of 17 February 1997 on Community statistics (8), which constitutes the reference framework for the provisions of this Regulation, it is necessary for the collection of statistics to conform to the principles of impartiality, meaning in particular objectivity and scientific independence, as well as transparency, reliability, relevance, cost-effectiveness and statistical confidentiality.
(10)
The measures necessary for implementation of this Regulation should be adopted in accordance with Council Decision 1999/468/EC of 28 June 1999 laying down the procedures for the exercise of implementing powers conferred on the Commission (9).
(11)
In particular, the Commission should be empowered to amend Annexes I, II, IV and V. Since such measures are of general scope and are designed to amend non-essential elements of this Regulation, inter alia, by supplementing it with new non-essential elements, they must be adopted in accordance with the regulatory procedure with scrutiny provided for in Article 5a of Decision 1999/468/EC.
(12)
Directives 93/23/EEC, 93/24/EEC and 93/25/EEC should therefore be repealed.
(13)
The Standing Committee for Agricultural Statistics has been consulted,
