Considerations on COM(2023)402 - Amendment of Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics - Main contents
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This page contains a limited version of this dossier in the EU Monitor.
| dossier | COM(2023)402 - Amendment of Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics. |
|---|---|
| document | COM(2023)402 |
| date | November 27, 2024 |
(2) Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 was amended in 2015 to further strengthen the governance in the European Statistical System (ESS) in particular its professional independence, and since then the strengthened governance has proven to be effective.
(3) Digital transformation has ushered in radically different realities and created a new environment with new needs for European statistics. Moreover, the recent Covid-19 crisis and the energy crisis triggered by the Russian military aggression against Ukraine have amplified the demands and expectations for timelier, more frequent and more detailed European statistics needed to inform EU decision-making and ensure the best possible Union response to crises.
(4) To address growing expectations for timelier, more frequent and more detailed European statistics as well as for a faster and more coordinated ESS response to urgent statistical demands in times of crisis, it is necessary to amend Regulation (EC) No 223/2009. The purpose of this Regulation is to ensure that European statistics stay relevant by taking into account those changing and more demanding user needs, notably by tapping the full potential of digital data sources and technologies, by enabling their re-use for European statistics, by making the ESS more agile and able to respond effectively and swiftly to crises, and by promoting data sharing and strengthening coordination among ESS partners.
(5) To reflect today’s realities and the digital age in which the ESS operates, new or updated definitions should be introduced into Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 to clarify the concepts of ‘data’, ‘metadata’, ‘data holders’, ‘reuse of data’, ‘data sharing’, ‘data source’, ‘multi-source statistics’, ‘use for statistical purposes’, and ‘crisis’.
(6) The recent Covid pandemic demonstrated that timely, reliable and comparable European statistics are vital to the effectiveness of public authorities’ response to emergency situations. Therefore, the ESS should be given the possibility to swiftly initiate coordinated actions if urgent data and statistics needs arise outside the regular planning framework, especially in times of crisis. In such situation, a data holder should make, upon request, data available to a national statistical institute (NSI) or the Commission (Eurostat) that demonstrates an exceptional need to use the data requested, in accordance with the rules laid down in the Data Act10.
(7) Accessing and re-using new data sources, which emerge as by-products of digital services and the Internet of Things (IoT), is becoming vital for producing timely, suitably frequent and sufficiently detailed European statistics in a more efficient and less costly way. Therefore, access to new data sources in general and particularly to privately held data for the development and production of European official statistics on a sustainable basis and according to fair, clear and predictable rules should be ensured.
(8) Access to new data sources, including particularly to privately held data, has been a longstanding request by the ESS as demonstrated by the ESS Position Paper on access to privately held data which are of public interest from November 2017, and the ESS Position Paper on the future Data Act proposal from June 2021.
(9) The reuse of privately held data and other new data sources should be subject to strict legal, technical and procedural safeguards and guarantees, including applying a high level of security, confidentiality and respect for privacy, as already enshrined in Regulation (EC) No 223/2009. The possibility to request access to privately held data should be limited to the national statistical institutes (NSIs), acting on their own or on behalf of another national authority of the ESS, and the Commission (Eurostat) only and should, as a pre-requisite, be established in an annual work programme and restricted to cases where, on the one hand, the data requested is necessary for the development and production of European statistics and, on the other hand, the data cannot be readily obtained otherwise or the data reuse would result in a considerable reduction in the response burden on data holders and other businesses.
(10) Data requests by the NSIs or the Commission (Eurostat) should be transparent and proportionate in terms of their scope and level of detail. In that connection, it is necessary to specify and explain the purpose of the request, the intended use of the data requested, the frequency with which and deadlines by which the data should be made available as well as the operational arrangements for making them available.
(11) With the data requests, the NSI or the Commission (Eurostat) should invite the data holder to a dialogue to specify the concrete parameters of data requests, arrangements, measures to offset potential costs incurred to make data available as well as any organisational and technical measures to protect data confidentiality and trade secrets, with a view to concluding an agreement on those aspects. If no agreement is concluded within three months, the NSI or the Commission should have the possibility to adopt a decision requiring the private data holder to make data available. If the data holder intentionally or negligently fails to transmit the requested data within the set period or transmits incorrect, incomplete or misleading data, the NSI or the Commission should have the possibility to adopt penalties that should be effective, proportionate and dissuasive, taking into account the nature, gravity, recurrence and duration of the violation, in view of the public interest pursued. The penalties adopted by the NSIs should be equivalent to penalties regarding infringements of similar national rules. All decisions taken by the Commission under this Regulation are subject to review by the Court of Justice of the European Union in accordance with the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The Court of Justice of the European Union should have unlimited jurisdiction in respect of fines adopted by the Commission in accordance with Article 261 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
(12) The further integration of statistics and geospatial information should also be encouraged to enable a more efficient use of resources and improved integration of data by different public organisations and to produce new statistical outputs, such as spatial analysis, and visualisation and dissemination of data. These will support decision-making and the monitoring of policy goals at both Union and national level.
(13) It is necessary to ensure that national public bodies in charge of administrative data sources relevant for development, production and dissemination of European statistics allow national statistical authorities to access, reuse and integrate this data free of charge in time and with sufficient frequency for the purposes of producing and transmitting statistics to the Commission (Eurostat) within the deadlines and in accordance with quality requirements defined in Union statistical legislation.
(14) Where the activities to be carried out under this Regulation involve the processing of personal data, such processing should comply with the relevant EU legislation on personal data protection, namely Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 of the European Parliament and of the Council11 and Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council12. In accordance with the data minimisation principle set out in these regulations, data provided under this Regulation should normally be aggregated to such a degree that individuals cannot be identified.
(15) Processing of personal data for the purposes of official statistics by national statistical authorities, which is considered to be in the public interest, should be covered by derogations and subject to appropriate safeguards, in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2016/679. For instance, further processing of personal data for statistical purposes should not be considered to be incompatible with the initial purposes for which they were collected. In that context, the particular safeguards which should be applied when data sharing according to this Regulation requires personal data to be processed, include the principles of purpose limitation, data minimisation, storage limitation and integrity and confidentiality as set out in Regulation (EU) 2016/679. In that regard, the use of privacy enhancing technologies that are specifically designed to implement these principles should be the way to share data.
(16) To be on the forefront of integrating new technologies and new insights progressively, and thereby to ensure that European statistics continuously stay relevant, rules should be established under which, as part of a collective effort by the ESS, statistics can be developed in specific areas with the aim of integrating them in the regular production of European Statistics. Although not necessarily fulfilling all quality criteria laid down in Article 12(1) of Regulation (EC) No 223/2009, those statistics should be treated as European statistics.
(17) While striving to continuously innovate and develop new statistical outputs, national statistical authorities should take the utmost account of users’ needs as expressed notably by national statistical user councils. At Union level, the European Statistical Advisory Committee (ESAC), established by Decision No 234/2008/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council13 as the main Union body representing users, respondents and producers of European statistics, should be informed by the Commission on how it has taken into account the ESAC’s opinions, particularly with regard to developing new European statistics.
(18) Statistical authorities should also promote, at both national and European level, a strong, structured and sustained interdisciplinary cooperation with academic and research institutions, especially when developing new statistics, testing new methods and technologies and promoting innovation and experimentation.
(19) Given the trust granted to NSIs and their high technical expertise in data management, data quality and data protection, Member States should be encouraged, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, to assign to the NSIs certain functions in the national data governance frameworks including those foreseen in the Data Governance Act, with the objective of promoting data integration and inter-operability, metadata description, quality assurance and standard setting. In that regard, the involvement of NSIs in the initial design, subsequent development and discontinuation of administrative records should be recalled and reinforced when appropriate, with a view to ensuring, among other things, consistency and data quality and to minimising the reporting burden.
(20) Data that is lawfully available to the public should not be considered confidential when used for statistical purposes.
(21) In the interest of increased timeliness at Union level, the Commission (Eurostat) should be allowed to disseminate Member States’ European statistics as soon as they have been published nationally, even if this was done ahead of the deadlines for providing the statistics that are set out in the relevant sectoral Union legislation.
(22) Since the objective of this Regulation, namely the amendment of the legal framework for developing, producing and disseminating European statistics, cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States but can rather, for reasons of consistency and comparability, be better achieved at Union level, the Union may adopt measures to achieve that objective, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity as set out in Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union. In accordance with the principle of proportionality as set out in that Article, this Regulation does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve that objective.
(23) In order to ensure uniform conditions for the implementation of this Regulation, implementing powers should be conferred on the Commission in respect of the temporary statistical actions to be undertaken, including the relevant timespan, frequency and quality requirements, of the general technical arrangements for making privately held data available to the NSIs and the Commission (Eurostat) and of the technical aspects of data sharing between the statistical authorities. Those powers should be exercised in accordance with Regulation (EU) No 182/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council14.
(24) The European Data Protection Supervisor was consulted in accordance with Article 42(1) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 of the European Parliament and of the Council15 and delivered an opinion on [xxx].
(25) The European Statistical System (ESS) Committee was consulted.