Commission Regulation (EU) No 461/2012 of 31 May 2012 amending Council Regulation (EC) No 1165/98 concerning short-term statistics and Commission Regulations (EC) No 1503/2006, (EC) No 657/2007 and (EC) No 1178/2008 as regards adaptations related to the removal of the industrial new orders variables Text with EEA relevance

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION,

Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,

Having regard to Council Regulation (EC) No 1165/98 of 19 May 1998 concerning short-term statistics (1), and in particular Article 17, points (b) to (g) thereof,

Whereas:

(1) Regulation (EC) No 1165/98 established a common framework for the production of short-term Community statistics on the business cycle and laid down the required variables for the analysis of the short-term evolution of supply and demand, production factors and prices.

(2) Commission Regulation (EC) No 1503/2006 of 28 September 2006 implementing and amending Council Regulation (EC) No 1165/98 concerning short-term statistics as regards definitions of variables, list of variables and frequency of data compilation (2) provided definitions of the objectives and characteristics of the variables.

(3) Commission Regulation (EC) No 657/2007 of 14 June 2007 implementing Council Regulation (EC) No 1165/98 concerning short-term statistics as regards the establishment of European sample schemes (3), specified the rules and conditions with regard to transmission of data by Member States participating in European sample schemes for short-term statistics.

(4) Commission Regulation (EC) No 1178/2008 of 28 November 2008, amending Council Regulation (EC) No 1165/98 concerning short-term statistics and Commission Regulations (EC) No 1503/2006 and (EC) No 657/2007 as regards adaptations following the revision of statistical classifications NACE and CPA (4), updated the rules and conditions for the European sample schemes following the adoption of Regulation (EC) No 1893/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 December 2006 establishing the statistical classification of economic activities NACE Revision 2 and amending Council Regulation (EEC) No 3037/90, as well as certain EC Regulations on specific statistical domains (5), and Regulation (EC) No 451/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2008 establishing a new statistical classification of products by activity (CPA) and repealing Council Regulation (EEC) No 3696/93 (6).

(5) The industrial new orders variables introduced by Regulation (EC) No 1165/98 were intended to serve as a leading indicator of future production. However, the predictive capacity of these variables has proven to be limited, and since these variables have failed to demonstrate stable leading properties across all Member States, the European Statistical System Committee has agreed that the data collection of the industrial new orders variables should be stopped in the context of prioritisation in the development and production of statistics in the light of reduced resources and with the objective of reducing the burden on the European Statistical System.

(6) In order to implement the removal of the industrial new orders variables, it is necessary to remove all references made to these variables in connexion with the list of variables, the reference period, the level of detail, the deadline for data transmission, the transition period and the definitions to be applied to these variables, and also in relation to the terms of the European sample scheme concerning non-domestic new orders.

(7) The measures provided for in this Regulation are in accordance with the opinion of the European Statistical System Committee,

HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:

Article 1

Annex A to Regulation (EC) No 1165/98 is amended in accordance with Annex I to this Regulation.

Article 2

Annex I to Regulation (EC) No 1503/2006 is amended in accordance with Annex II to this Regulation.

Article 3

In Regulation (EC) No 657/2007 Articles 1 and 2 are replaced by the following:

‘Article 1

European sample schemes may be applied when compiling statistics that distinguish between the euro area and non-euro-area for the following two variables specified in Annex A to Regulation (EC) No 1165/98:

Article 2

Member States participating in the European sample scheme referred to in Article 1 shall transmit data to the Commission (Eurostat) at least for the NACE activities, for variable No 312, and CPA products, for variable No 340, specified in the Annex.’.

Article 4

Annex III to Regulation (EC) No 1178/2008 is amended in accordance with Annex III to this Regulation.

Article 5

This Regulation shall enter into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.

This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.

Done at Brussels, 31 May 2012.

For the Commission The President José Manuel BARROSO

(1) OJ L 162, 5.6.1998, p. 1.

(2) OJ L 281, 12.10.2006, p. 15.

(3) OJ L 155, 15.6.2007, p. 7.

(4) OJ L 319, 29.11.2008, p. 16.

(5) OJ L 393, 30.12.2006, p. 1.

(6) OJ L 145, 4.6.2008, p. 65.