Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2009 on European statistics and repealing Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1101/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the transmission of data subject to statistical confidentiality to the Statistical Office of the European Communities, Council Regulation (EC) No 322/97 on Community Statistics, and Council Decision 89/382/EEC, Euratom establishing a Committee on the Statistical Programmes of the European Communities (Text with relevance for the EEA and for Switzerland)

CHAPTER I

GENERAL PROVISIONS

Article 1

Subject matter and scope

This Regulation establishes a legal framework for the development, production and dissemination of European statistics.

In compliance with the principle of subsidiarity and in accordance with the independence, integrity and accountability of the national and the Community authorities, European statistics are relevant statistics necessary for the performance of the activities of the Community. European statistics are determined in the European statistical programme. They shall be developed, produced and disseminated in conformity with the statistical principles as set out in Article 285(2) of the Treaty and further elaborated in the European statistics Code of Practice in accordance with Article 11. They shall be implemented in accordance with this Regulation.

Article 2

Statistical principles

The development, production and dissemination of European statistics shall be governed by the following statistical principles:

(a) ‘professional independence’, meaning that statistics must be developed, produced and disseminated in an independent manner, particularly as regards the selection of techniques, definitions, methodologies and sources to be used, and the timing and content of all forms of dissemination, and that the performance of those tasks is free from any pressures from political or interest groups or from Union or national authorities;

(b) ‘impartiality’, meaning that statistics must be developed, produced and disseminated in a neutral manner, and that all users must be given equal treatment;

(c) ‘objectivity’, meaning that statistics must be developed, produced and disseminated in a systematic, reliable and unbiased manner; it implies the use of professional and ethical standards, and that the policies and practices followed are transparent to users and survey respondents;

(d) ‘reliability’, meaning that statistics must measure as faithfully, accurately and consistently as possible the reality that they are designed to represent and implying that scientific criteria are used for the selection of sources, methods and procedures;

(e) ‘statistical confidentiality’, meaning the protection of confidential data related to single statistical units which are obtained directly for statistical purposes or indirectly from administrative or other sources and implying the prohibition of use for non-statistical purposes of the data obtained and of their unlawful disclosure;

(f) ‘cost effectiveness’, meaning that the costs of producing statistics must be in proportion to the importance of the results and the benefits sought, that resources must be optimally used and the response burden minimised. The information requested shall, where possible, be readily extractable from available records or sources.

The statistical principles set out in this paragraph are further elaborated in the Code of Practice in accordance with Article 11.

Article 3

Definitions

For the purposes of this Regulation, the following definitions shall apply:

4a. ‘data’ means any digital or non-digital representation of acts, facts or information and any compilation of such acts, facts or information on the units observed;

4b. ‘metadata’ means any information that defines and describes data and processes;

4c. ‘data holder’ means a legal or natural person or any other entity that has the right, in accordance with applicable Union or national law, and the ability to manage and make available data obtained as a result of their activity;

5a. ‘data source’ means a source providing data that is relevant and necessary, in itself or in combination with data from other sources, for the development and production of statistics, including surveys, censuses, administrative data or data made available by data holders on request;

5b. ‘data access’ means the processing by a national statistical institute or other national authorities or by the Commission (Eurostat) of data that have been provided or made available by a data holder, in accordance with specific technical, legal or organisational requirements;

CHAPTER II

STATISTICAL GOVERNANCE

Article 4

The European Statistical System

The European Statistical System (ESS) is the partnership between the Community statistical authority, which is the Commission (Eurostat), and the national statistical institutes (NSIs) and other national authorities responsible in each Member State for the development, production and dissemination of European statistics.

Article 5

National statistical institutes and other national authorities

The coordinating responsibility of the NSI shall cover all other national authorities responsible for the development, production and dissemination of European statistics, which are determined in the European statistical programme in accordance with Article 1. The NSI shall, in particular, be responsible at the national level for coordinating statistical programming and reporting, quality monitoring, methodology, data transmission and communication on ESS statistical actions. To the extent that some of those European statistics may be compiled by National Central Banks (NCBs) in their capacity as members of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB), the NSIs and the NCBs shall cooperate closely in accordance with national arrangements with a view to ensuring the production of complete and coherent European statistics, while ensuring the necessary cooperation between the ESS and the ESCB as set out in Article 9.

Article 5a

Heads of NSIs and statistical heads of other national authorities

To that end, the heads of NSIs shall:

(a) have the sole responsibility for deciding on processes, statistical methods, standards and procedures, and on the content and timing of statistical releases and publications for European statistics developed, produced and disseminated by the NSI;

(b) be empowered to decide on all matters regarding the internal management of the NSI;

(c) act in an independent manner while performing their statistical tasks; and neither seek nor take instructions from any government or other institution, body, office or entity;

(d) be responsible for the statistical activities and budget execution of the NSI;

(e) publish an annual report and may express comments on budget allocation issues related to the statistical activities of the NSI;

(f) coordinate the statistical activities of all national authorities that are responsible for the development, production and dissemination of European statistics, as set out in Article 5(1);

(g) produce national guidelines, where this is necessary to ensure quality in the development, production and dissemination of all European statistics within their national statistical system and monitor and review their implementation; while being responsible for ensuring compliance with those guidelines solely within the NSI; and

(h) represent their national statistical system within the ESS.

Article 6

Commission (Eurostat)

Article 6a

Director-General of the Commission (Eurostat)

Article 7

European Statistical System Committee

The ESS Committee shall be consulted by the Commission in regard to:

(a) the measures which the Commission intends to take for the development, production and dissemination of European statistics, their justification on a cost-effectiveness basis, the means and timetables for achieving them, the response burden on survey respondents;

(b) proposed developments and priorities in the European statistical programme;

(c) initiatives to bring into practice the reprioritisation and reduction of the response burden;

(d) issues concerning statistical confidentiality;

(e) the further development of the Code of Practice; and

(f) any other question, in particular issues of methodology, arising from the establishment or implementation of statistical programmes that are raised by its Chair, either on its own initiative or at the request of a Member State.

Article 8

Cooperation with other bodies

The European Statistical Advisory Committee and the European Statistical Governance Advisory Board shall be consulted in accordance with their respective competence.

Article 9

Cooperation with the ESCB

To minimise the reporting burden and guarantee the coherence necessary to produce European statistics, the ESS and the ESCB shall cooperate closely, while complying with the statistical principles as set out in Article 2(1).

Article 10

International cooperation

Without prejudice to the position and the role of individual Member States, the position of the ESS as regards issues of particular relevance to European statistics at international level as well as the specific arrangements for representation in the international statistical bodies shall be prepared by the ESS Committee and coordinated by the Commission (Eurostat).

Article 11

European statistics Code of Practice

In the absence of the publication of a Commitment by 9 June 2017, a Member State shall submit to the Commission and make public a progress report on the implementation of the Code of Practice and, where applicable, on the efforts undertaken towards the establishment of a Commitment. Those progress reports shall be updated periodically, at least every two years following their initial publication.

The Commission shall report to the European Parliament and the Council on the published Commitments and, where appropriate, progress reports, by 9 June 2018 and every two years thereafter.

Article 12

Statistical quality

To guarantee the quality of results, European statistics shall be developed, produced and disseminated on the basis of uniform standards and of harmonised methods. In this respect, the following quality criteria shall apply:

(a) ‘relevance’, which refers to the degree to which statistics meet current and potential needs of the users;

(b) ‘accuracy’, which refers to the closeness of estimates to the unknown true values;

(c) ‘timeliness’, which refers to the period between the availability of the information and the event or phenomenon it describes;

(d) ‘punctuality’, which refers to the delay between the date of the release of the data and the target date (the date by which the data should have been delivered);

(e) ‘accessibility’ and ‘clarity’, which refer to the conditions and modalities by which users can obtain, use and interpret data;

(f) ‘comparability’, which refers to the measurement of the impact of differences in applied statistical concepts, measurement tools and procedures where statistics are compared between geographical areas, sectoral domains or over time;

(g) ‘coherence’, which refers to the adequacy of the data to be reliably combined in different ways and for various uses.

In order to ensure the uniform application of the quality criteria laid down in paragraph 1 to the data covered by sectoral legislation in specific statistical domains, the Commission shall adopt implementing acts laying down the modalities, structure and periodicity of quality reports covered by sectoral legislation. Those implementing acts shall be adopted in accordance with the examination procedure referred to in Article 27(2).

CHAPTER III

PRODUCTION OF EUROPEAN STATISTICS

Article 13

European statistical programme

Article 14

Implementation of the European statistical programme

The European statistical programme shall be implemented by individual statistical actions which shall be decided:

(a) by the European Parliament and the Council;

(b) by the Commission, in specific and duly justified cases, in particular to meet unexpected needs, in accordance with the provisions in paragraph 2; or

(c) by means of agreement between the NSIs or other national authorities and the Commission (Eurostat), within their respective spheres of competence. Such agreements shall be in writing.

The Commission may, by means of implementing acts, decide on a temporary direct statistical action provided that:

(a) the action does not provide for data collection covering more than three reference years;

(b) the data are already available or accessible within the NSIs and other national authorities responsible, or can be obtained directly, using the appropriate samples for the observation of the statistical population at Union level with the adequate coordination with the NSIs and other national authorities; and

(c) the Union makes financial contributions to the NSIs and other national authorities to cover the incremental costs incurred by them, in accordance with Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 966/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council (²).

Those implementing acts shall be adopted in accordance with the examination procedure referred to in Article 27(2).

In putting forward an action to be decided under paragraph 1(a) or (b), the Commission shall provide information on:

(a) the reasons justifying the action, notably in the light of the aims of the Community policy concerned;

(b) the objectives for the action and the expected results;

(c) a cost-effectiveness analysis, including an assessment of the burden on respondents and of the production costs; and

(d) the ways in which the action is to be carried out, including its duration and the role of the Commission and the Member States.

Article 15

Collaborative networks

In the individual statistical actions, synergies shall be developed, when possible, within the ESS through collaborative networks, by the sharing of expertise and results or by fostering specialisation on specific tasks. To this end, an adequate financial structure shall be developed.

The outcome of those actions, such as joint structures, tools, processes and methods shall be made available throughout the ESS. The initiatives for the creation of collaborative networks as well as the outcomes shall be examined by the ESS Committee.

Article 16

European approach to statistics

In specific and duly justified cases and within the framework of the European statistical programme, the European approach to statistics aims at:

(a) maximising the availability of statistical aggregates at European level and improving the timeliness of European statistics;

(b) reducing the burden on the respondents, the NSIs and other national authorities based on a cost-effectiveness analysis.

The cases where the European approach to statistics is relevant include:

(a) the production of European statistics by use of: (i) non-published national contributions or national contributions from a subset of Member States; (ii) specifically designed survey schemes; (iii) partial information by modelling techniques;

(b) the dissemination of statistical aggregates at European level by applying specific statistical disclosure control techniques without national dissemination provisions being impaired.

Article 16a

Statistical response to urgent policy needs in crisis situations

The Commission (Eurostat) shall examine crisis situations and may undertake urgent statistical actions as appropriate, subject to the procedures set out in this Article, where both of the following conditions are met:

(a) it is strictly necessary to respond to urgent policy needs which arise from the crisis situation concerned following the activation of established emergency mechanisms in accordance with Union legal acts, such as Council Implementing Decision (EU) 2018/1993 (³) or other Union emergency legal acts;

(b) those urgent policy needs cannot be met under the European statistical programme.

The urgent statistical actions referred to in paragraph 1 shall be carried out by the Commission (Eurostat) at Union level in close cooperation with the NSIs and other national authorities, and may include: