EN Official Journal of the European Union L 255/6

REGULATION (EC) No 1553/2005 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL

of 7 September 2005

amending Regulation (EC) No 1177/2003 concerning Community statistics on income and living conditions (EU-SILC)

(Text with EEA relevance)

THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,

Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular Article 285 thereof,

Having regard to the proposal from the Commission,

Acting in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 251 of the Treaty (1),

Whereas:

(1) Regulation (EC) No 1177/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 June 2003 concerning Community statistics on income and living conditions (EU-SILC) (2), establishes a common framework for the systematic production of Community statistics on income and living conditions, encompassing comparable and timely cross-sectional and longitudinal data on income and on the level and composition of poverty and social exclusion at national and European levels.

(2) As a result of the accession of new Member States to the European Union on 1 May 2004, there is a need to extend Annex II to Regulation (EC) No 1177/2003, since that Annex sets out for each Member State the minimum effective sample sizes required under the EU-SILC scheme.

(3) Furthermore, it appears that most of the new Member States, and several of the existing Member States, need additional time to adapt their systems to the harmonised methods and definitions used to compile Community statistics.

(4) Regulation (EC) No 1177/2003 should therefore be amended accordingly,

HAVE ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:

Article 1

Regulation (EC) No 1177/2003 is hereby amended as follows:

1. Article 4(2) shall be replaced by the following: ‘2. By way of derogation from paragraph 1, the Czech Republic, Germany, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia and the United Kingdom may start the annual cross-sectional and longitudinal data collection in 2005. This authorisation is subject to the condition that those Member States shall supply comparable data for the year 2004 for the cross-sectional common European Union indicators which were adopted by the Council before 1 January 2003 in the context of the open method of coordination and which can be derived on the basis of the EU-SILC instrument.’;

2. in Article 13, the following paragraphs shall be added: ‘4. By way of derogation from paragraph 1, Estonia shall receive a financial contribution from the Community towards the cost of the work involved for the four years of data collection from 2005. 5. The financing for the year 2007 is yet to be ensured by a future Community programme.’;

3. Annex II shall be replaced by the text set out in the Annex to this Regulation.

Article 2

This Regulation shall enter into force on the 20th day following 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 Strasbourg, 7 September 2005. For the European Parliament The President J. BORRELL FONTELLES For the Council The President C. CLARKE

(1) Opinion of the European Parliament of 10 May 2005 (not yet published in the Official Journal) and Council Decision of 12 July 2005.

(2) OJ L 165, 3.7.2003, p. 1.