Madam President, on the basis of a 1996 regulation, Eurostat has been compiling structural business statistics in the industry, construction and trade sectors for five years. Since 1998, these statistics have also included the area of insurance services. The proposal before us also seeks to obtain structural statistics in the area of credit institutions, pension funds, other financial intermediation activities which are covered by investment companies, such as leasing companies, mortgage credit, consumer credit and lastly financial auxiliaries, such as brokers, portfolio management...the list is endless. This list of areas allows you to see the importance of extending structural statistics, which will enable us to evaluate the development of the internal market in financial services, as well as the effect of the introduction of the single currency on the development of the internal market and on competitiveness and internationalisation of the sector. Given all the years that we have spent in this House debating the single market in pension funds, and all the months that we have spent examining the first proposal for a directive on institutions for occupational retirement provision, I do not have to convince you of the need for us and other political decision-makers within the European Union to have reliable information in this area as well, such as information on the number of pension schemes, the number of businesses with members working in another country of the European Union, even within the European Economic Area, but also the number of members, by sex, of these funds or retirement institutions which complement the second pillar. I have presented some amendments which received the unanimous blessing of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, to ensure that all these breakdowns will not be optional, as the Commission proposed, but that they are compulsory, and that the data regarding employment will also be broken down by sex, since I am a member of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities, and I now always try to take a mainstream approach in my reports with regard to these issues. I do all this to make sure that we are not badly-informed political decision makers. As you know, political decision-makers who are badly informed make bad judgments and take bad decisions. The Commission’s proposal contains a second part, which seeks to add two additional variables on environmental protection expenditure, on structural statistics on industry, the construction and trade sectors. Reliable information on investments in cleaner equipment and plant and current environmental protection expenditure will be broken down by domains; the protection of ambient air and the climate, waste water management, waste management and other activities relating to environmental protection. Data on investments will be compiled yearly, whilst the total current expenditure will be compiled every three years. I would like to point out that a long transitional period is also planned and that small businesses may, in general, be excluded from the studies, because their impact on environmental protection expenditure is minimal. I would also like to add that the data compiled by Eurostat are also used for sustainable development indicators. As for the financial sector, excessive additional costs should not be feared because much of the data has already been collated due to careful monitoring of these sectors. For other sectors, it has been planned to introduce these activities on a very flexible basis. The first obligatory reference year and the deadline for transmission will be determined at a later date in line with the commitology procedure, which we hardly support, but which, in this case, seems to be the most reasonable and is, therefore, perfectly acceptable. Madam President, this is a useful, even indispensable proposal and it is reasonable with regard to collating data; it has been well prepared due to the pilot studies. I would like to congratulate Eurostat for all the preparation that has been done and I therefore believe, Madam President, that Parliament will be able to adopt my report in the safe knowledge that a good and swift piece of work has been done.

Political group: PPE-DE