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Thisdocumentismeantpurelyasadocumentationtoolandtheinstitutionsdonotassumeanyliabilityforitscontents
►B COUNCILREGULATION(EURATOM,EEC)No1588/90
of11June1990
on the transmission of data subject to statistical confidentiality to the Statistical Office of the
EuropeanCommunities
(OJ L 151, 15.6.1990, p. 1)
Amended by:
Official Journal
No page date
►M1Council Regulation (EC) No 322/97 of 17 February 1997 L 52 1 22.2.1997
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▼B
COUNCILREGULATION(EURATOM,EEC)No1588/90
of11June1990
onthetransmissionofdatasubjecttostatisticalconfidentialityto
theStatisticalOfficeoftheEuropeanCommunities
THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES,
Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European EconomicCommunity, and in particular Article 213 thereof,
Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European AtomicEnergy
Community, and in particular Article 187 thereof,
Having regard to the draft Regulation submitted by the Commission(
1),
Having regard to the opinion of the European Parliament(2),
Whereas, to enable it to carry out the duties entrusted to it by the Trea-
ties, and especially in the light of the internal market as provided for inArticle 8a of the Treaty establishing the European Economic Commu-
nity, hereinafter referred to as the ‘EEC Treaty’, the Commission must
have full and reliable information; whereas, with a view to efficientmanagement, the Statistical Office of the European Communities, here-inafter referred to as the ‘SOEC’, must be able to obtain all the nationalstatistical information necessary in order to prepare Community statis-tics and carry out the necessary analyses;
Whereas Article 5 of the EEC Treaty and Article 192 of the Treaty
establishing the European AtomicEnergy Community, hereinafterreferred to as the ‘Euratom Treaty’, require Member States to facilitatethe achievement of the Community's tasks; whereas this obligation
extends to providing all the requisite information; whereas the absence
of confidential statistical data constitutes for the SOEC a considerableloss of information at Community level and makes it difficult to preparestatistics and carry out analyses on the Community;
Whereas Member States will have no further cause to invoke provisions
on statistical confidentiality once it is established that the SOEC offersthe same data confidentiality guarantees as the national statistical insti-tutes;
whereas these guarantees are already to some extent enshrined in the
Community Treaties, notably in Article 214 of the EEC Treaty andArticle 194 (1) of the Euratom Treaty, and in the Staff Regulations ofOfficials of the European Communities and can be backed up by appro-priate measures under this Regulation;
Whereas, in accordance with Article 214 of the EEC Treaty and Article
194 (1) of the Euratom Treaty, officials and other servants of theCommunity are required, even after their duties have ceased, not to
disclose information of the kind covered by the obligation of profes-
sional secrecy;
Whereas Article 17 of the Staff Regulations of Officials of the European
Communities requires officials to respect the confidentiality of all facts
and information coming to their knowledge in the course of, or in
connection with, the performance of their duties; whereas they remainbound by this obligation after leaving the service;
Whereas any violation of statistical confidentiality protected by this
Regulation must be dealt with effectively, whoever the offender may
be;
Whereas any infringement of the rules binding officials and other
servants working for the SOEC, whether committed wilfully or through
negligence, renders them liable to disciplinary sanctions and, if appro-
priate, legal penalties for violation of professional secrecy, pursuant to
(1) OJ No C 86, 7. 4. 1989, p. 12.
(2) OJ No C 291, 20. 11. 1989, p. 27.
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the combined provisions of Articles 12 and 18 of the Protocol on the
Privileges and Immunities of the European Communities;
Whereas, in accordance with Article 215 of the EEC Treaty and Article
188 of the Euratom Treaty, the Community shall make good anydamage caused by its institutions or by its servants in the performanceof their duties;
Whereas this Regulation applies only to the transmission to the SOEC
of statistical data which, in the national statistical institutes' field of
competence, are covered by statistical confidentiality, and whereas itdoes not affect special national or Community provisions relating to thetransmission of other types of information to the Commission;
Whereas this Regulation is to be adopted without prejudice to Article
223 of the EEC Treaty, under which no Member State is required tosupply information the disclosure of which it considers contrary to the
essential interests of its security;
Whereas, in accordance with Article 47 of the Treaty establishing the
European Coal and Steel Community, the Commission has adopted inparticular Decision No 1566/86/ECSC(
1) and whereas decisions of that
type are not affected by this Regulation, in compliance with Article 232of the EEC Treaty;
Whereas the establishment, under this Regulation, of a Committee on
Statistical Confidentiality accords with Council Decision 87/373/EEC
of 13 July 1987 laying down the procedures for the exercise of the
implementing powers conferred on the Commission(
2);
Whereas implementation of the provisions contained in this Regulation,
and in particular those designed to ensure the protection of confidentialstatistical data transmitted to the SOEC, will require human, technicaland financial resources,
HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:
Article 1
1. The purpose of this Regulation is:
— to authorize national authorities to transmit confidential statistical
data to the Statistical Office of the European Communities (herein-
after referred to as the ‘SOEC’),
— to provide a guarantee that the Commission will take all necessary
measures to ensure the confidentiality of data thus transmitted.
2. This Regulation shall apply to statistical confidentiality only. It
shall not affect special, Community or national provisions safeguarding
confidentiality other than statistical confidentiality.
Article 2
For the purposes of this Regulation, the terms given below are defined
as follows:
▼M1
1. confidential statistical data: data defined in Article 13 of Council
Regulation (EC) No 322/97 of 17 February 1997 on CommunityStatistics(
3);
▼B2. national authorities: national statistical institutes and other national
bodies responsible for the collection and use of statistics for theCommunities;
(1) OJ No L 141, 28. 5. 1986, p. 1.
(2) OJ No L 197, 18. 7. 1987, p. 33.
(3) OJ No L 52, 22. 2. 1997, p. 1.
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3. information on the private lives of natural persons: information on
the private and family lives of natural persons as defined bynational legislation or practices in the various Member States;
4. use for statistical purposes: use exclusively for the compilation of
statistical tables or for statistical economic analyses; may not be
used for administrative, legal or tax purposes or for verification
against the units surveyed;
5. statistical unit: basic unit covered by statistical data transmitted to
the SOEC;
6. direct identification: identification of a statistical unit from its
name or address, or from an officially allocated and published
identification number;
7. indirect identification: possibility of deducing the identity of a
statistical unit other than from the information mentioned in point6;
8. officials of the SOEC: officials of the Communities, within the
meaning of Article 1 of the Staff Regulations of Officials of theEuropean Communities, working at the SOEC;
9. other staff of the SOEC: servants of the Communities, within the
meaning of Articles 2 to 5 of the Conditions of Employment ofOther Servants of the European Communities, working at theSOEC;
10. dissemination: supply of data in any form whatever: publications,
access to databases, microfiches, telephone communications, etc.
Article 3
1. The national authorities shall be authorized to transmit confidential
statistical data to the SOEC.
2. National rules on statistical confidentiality may not be invoked to
prevent the transmission of confidential statistical data to the SOECwhere an act of Community law governing a Community statisticprovides for the transmission of such data.
3. Transmission to the SOEC of confidential statistical data on the
structure and activity of undertakings, collected before the entry intoforce of this Regulation, must be carried out in accordance with therules and practices on statistical confidentiality in force in the Member
States.
Transmission to the SOEC of confidential statistical data, within the
meaning of paragraph 2, shall be carried out in such a way that statis-
tical units cannot be directly identified. This does not preclude the
admissibility of more far-reaching transmission rules in accordance withthe legislation of the Member States.
4. National authorities shall not be obliged to transmit information on
the private lives of natural persons to the SOEC if the information trans-mitted could enable those persons to be identified either directly orindirectly.
Article 4
1. The Commission shall take all the necessary regulatory, adminis-
trative, technical and organizational measures to ensure the confidenti-ality of statistical data transmitted by the competent departments ofMember States to the SOEC in accordance with Article 3.
2. The protection measures referred to in Article 5 shall apply to:
(a) all confidential statistical data the transmission of which to the
SOEC is covered by an act of Community law governing aCommunity statistic,
(b) all confidential statistical data transmitted voluntarily by Member
States to the SOEC.
3. The Commission shall establish the procedures for transmitting
confidential statistical data to the SOEC and the principles for protec-
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tion of such data in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article
7.
Article 5
1. The Commission shall instruct the Director-General of the SOEC
to ensure the protection of data transmitted to the SOEC by the national
departments of the Member States. It shall establish the arrangements
for the internal organization of the SOEC in order to ensure such protec-tion, after consulting the Committee referred to in Article 7.
2. Confidential statistical data transmitted to the SOEC shall be
accessible only to officials of the SOEC and may be used by themexclusively for statistical purposes.
3. However, the Commission may grant access to confidential statis-
tical data to other staff of the SOEC and other natural persons workingon the premises of the SOEC under contract, in special cases and exclu-sively for statistical purposes. The procedures for such access shall bedetermined by the Commission in accordance with the procedure laid
down in Article 7.
4. Confidential statistical data in the SOEC's possession may be
disseminated only when combined with other data in a form whichensures that statistical units cannot be identified either directly or indir-ectly.
5. Officials and other staff of the SOEC and other natural persons
working on the premises of the SOEC under contract may not use ordistribute these data for purposes other than those laid down in thisRegulation. This prohibition shall continue to apply following transfer,termination of service or retirement.
Article 6
Member States shall, before 1 January 1992, take appropriate measures
to curb any violations of the obligation to maintain the secrecy of confi-
dential statistical data transmitted in accordance with Article 3. Thesemeasures shall concern at least violations committed in the territory ofthe Member State concerned, by officials or other staff of the SOECand by the other natural persons working under contract on the premises
of the SOEC.
Member States shall inform the Commission without delay of the
measures taken. The Commission shall pass on this information to theother Member States.
Article 7
A Committee on Statistical Confidentiality, hereinafter referred to as
‘the Committee’, shall be set up, composed of representatives of all the
Member States and chaired by a representative of the Commission (theDirector-General of the SOEC or a person designated by him).
The representative of the Commission shall submit to the Committee a
draft of the measures to be taken, as referred to in Articles 4 (3) and 5(3). The Committee shall deliver its opinion on the draft, within a time
limit which the chairman may lay down according to the urgency of the
matter. The opinion shall be delivered by the majority laid down inArticle 148 (2) of the EEC Treaty in the case of decisions which theCouncil is required to adopt on a proposal from the Commission. Thevotes of the representatives of the Member States within the Committee
shall be weighted in the manner set out in that Article. The chairman
shall not vote.
The Commission shall adopt measures which shall apply immediately.
However, if these measures are not in accordance with the opinion ofthe Committee, they shall be communicated by the Commission to theCouncil forthwith. In that event:
— the Commission shall defer application of the measures upon which
it has decided for a period of three months from the date of commu-nication,
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— the Council, acting by a qualified majority, may take a different
decision within the time limit referred to in the first indent.
The Committee shall lay down its own rules of procedure.
Article 8
The Committee shall examine questions raised by its chairman, either
on his own initiative or at the request of the representative of a MemberState, relating to the implementation of this Regulation.
Article 9
This Regulation shall enter into force on the third day following its
publication in the Official Journal of the European Communities .
This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable
in all Member States.