EN ECB -PUBLIC  
 
OPINION OF THE EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK  
of 3 September  2018  
on the transmission of administrative data for statistical purposes  
(CON/2018/ 40) 
 
Introduction and legal basis  
On 20 July 2018 the European Central Bank (ECB) received a request from the German Federal 
Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy  (hereinafter ‘the Ministry’)  for an opinion on a draft law 
governing the statistical use of administrative data and the transmission of detailed information on 
multinational enterprise groups to statistical authorities (hereinafter the ‘draft law’).  On 
10 August  2018, the Ministry submitted to the ECB a revised version of the draft law.  
The ECB’s competence to deliver an opinion is based on Articles 127(4) and 282(5) of the Treaty on 
the Functioning of the European Union and the third indent of Article 2(1) of Council Decision 
98/415/EC1, as the draft law relates to the Deutsche Bundesbank (hereinafter ‘the Bundesbank’), and 
the specific tasks conferred upon the ECB concerning the prudential supervision of credit  institutions 
under Article 127(6) of the Treaty.  
In accordance with the first sentence of Article 17.5 of the Rules of Procedure of the European Central 
Bank, the Governing Council has adopted this opinion.  
 
1. Purpose and content of the draft law  
1.1 According to its explanatory memorandum, the draft law is intended to govern aspects of data 
exchange between authorities for two separate issues. First, the application of the EU concept 
of ‘enterprise’  for statistical purposes in Germany from the reporting year 2 018 onwards 
requires that data available at the Bundesbank and the Bundesanstalt für 
Finanzdienstleistungen (BaFin, the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority ) can be submitted to 
the Statistisches Bundesamt (Federal Statistical Office) and the statistica l offices of the Federal 
States. Second, to ensure that Germany can adequately participate in pilot studies of Eurostat 
on statistical data concerning multinational enterprises, provision has to be made for the 
exchange of detailed information at the Europ ean level.2  
1.2 The draft law obliges the Bundesbank to provide the Federal Statistical Office with the following 
data regarding entities belonging to economic activity classes 64.19- Other monetary 
                                                 
1  Council Decision 98/415/EC of 29 June 1998 on the consultation of the European Central Bank by national 
authorities regarding draft legislative provisions (OJ L 189, 3.7.1998, p. 42).  
2  Such pi lot studies will be carried out by Eurostat on the impact of cross- border restructuring and relocation 
processes of multinational enterprise groups on the quality and reliability of official economic and business 
statistics.  
ECB -PUBLIC  
2 intermediation and 64.92- Other credit granting as referred to in Annex I of Regulation (EC) 
No 1893/20063: (1) name and address, (2) legal form, (3) economic activity, (4) place and 
number of entry in the trade register, (5) Legal Entity Identifier and (6) data from the annual 
profit and loss account as well as data collected on staff.  
1.3 Furthermore, the Federal Statistical Office is required by the draft law to transmit the data 
received from the Bundesbank to the statistical offices of the Federal  States  for their respective 
field of competence.  
1.4 The draft law sets o ut that persons obliged to abide by confidentiality with respect to supervisory 
data according to section 9 of the German Banking Act ( Kreditwesengesetz ) are exempt from 
professional secrecy with respect to the data concerned by the draft law. Furthermore,  the draft 
law sets out that the confidentiality obligations arising from the German Banking Act with 
respect to,  inter alia , Bundesbank staff members shall be applicable  accordingly  to personnel of 
the German statistical offices with respect to  data conce rned by  the draft law.  
1.5 The draft law authorises the Federal Statistical Office to transmit detailed information , inter alia,  
to members of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) insofar as this is necessary to 
verify and improve the quality of the tr eatment of multinational enterprise groups in the national 
accounts and foreign trade statistics of the Member States of the European Union. Such 
detailed information includes general information on multinational and national enterprise 
groups as well as q uantitative economic statistics data. According to the draft law, the 
authorisation for the Federal Statistical Office to transmit such data is valid until the end of 2021.  
1.6 According to the explanatory memorandum of the draft law, the Federal Statistical O ffice is , for 
the purposes  of Article 5(1) of Regulation (EC) No 223/20094, the point of contact for Eurostat  in 
statistical matters. As such, it is obliged pursuant to Article 5(1) of Regulation (EC) 
No 295/20085 in conjunction with Commission Regulation (EC) No 251/20096 to acquire certain 
data concerning structural business statistics. For the proper implementation of the EU concept 
of statistical enterprise in terms of Council Regulation (EEC) No 696/93 7, the Federal Statistical 
Office will, from repor ting year 2018 onwards, have to fulfil its coordination function and send 
the required data to Eurostat. In accordance with Article 5(3) of Regulation (EC) No 295/2008 
and Article 17a(1)  of Regulation (EC) No 223/2009, national authorities shall have acces s to 
                                                 
3  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 (OJ L 393, 30.12.2006, p. 1) .  
4  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 Eur opean 
Communi ties, Council Regulation (EC) No 322/97 on Communi ty Statistics, and Council Decision 89/382/EEC, 
Euratom establishing a Committee on the Statistical Programmes of the European Communities (OJ L 87,  
31.3.2009, p. 164) . 
5  Regulation (EC) No 295/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2008 concerning 
structural business statistics  (OJ L 97, 9.4.2008, p. 13) . 
6  Commission Regulation (EC) No 251/2009 of 11 March 2009 implementing and amending Regulation (EC) 
No 295/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards the series of data to be produced for 
structural business statistics  and the adaptations necessary after the revision of the statistical classification of 
products by activity (CPA) (OJ L 86, 31.3.2009, p. 170) . 
7  Council R egulation (EEC) No 696/93 of 15 March 1993 on the statistical units for the observation and analysis of 
the production system in the Community (OJ L 76, 30.3.1993, p. 1) . 
ECB -PUBLIC  
3 and use available administrative data in order to reduce response burdens . Therefore the 
Federal Statistical Office should draw on available data from the Bundesbank.  
1.7 According to the explanatory memorandum accompanying the draft law, the provisions of the 
draft law are compatible with Directive 2013/36/EU8 (hereinafter ‘CRD IV’). The sharing of data 
by the Bundesbank with the Federal Statistical Office is required to comply with the EU law on 
statistics referred to above. Since these EU laws on statis tics have equal standing with CRD IV, 
extending the grounds to share confidential supervisory data is justified.   
 
2. Disclosure of supervisory data to the statistical offices  
2.1 The ECB understands that the draft law effectively requires the Bundesbank to dis close data it 
has collected i n the performance of its  supervisory function .  
2.2 It is questionable whether and to what extent the data submitted by the Bundesbank to the 
statistical offices under the draft law indeed concerns confidential information in terms  of CRD 
IV. As the Court of Justice of the E uropean Union has ruled with respect to Article 54 of 
Directive 2004/39/EC9, not all information communicated to a competent supervisory authority 
unconditionally constitutes confidential information.10 The inform ation to be made available in 
accordance with  the draft law  may indeed be public ly available. Taking this into account, t he 
impact of the draft law on confidential supervisory data may be further clarified in this regard.  
2.3 Insofar as the draft law concerns confidential supervisory data according to Title VII, Chapter 1, 
Section II  of CRD IV, it is noted that Articles 5 3 to 62  of CRD IV set out conditions under which 
confidential supervisory information may be shared with third parties, and refer to specific 
permitted recipients in this respect.  
2.4 The ECB takes note of the position reflected in the explanatory memorandum of the draft law 
that the Federal Statistical Office, in its capacity as the point of contact for Eurostat , is obliged to 
acquire the necessar y data on structural business statistics. The ECB also acknowledges that 
according to Regulation (EC) No 295/2008 and Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 the Federal 
Statistical Office  shall have the right  to have access to existing administrative records  in order  to 
reduce the response burden, and that administrative data be used to meet the requirements of 
the Regulation.  
2.5 However, the ECB takes note that Title VII,  Chapter 1, Section II of CRD IV , which is a part of 
the Single Rulebook  and forms the speci fic legal regime  applicable to the competent authorities , 
explicitly sets out various grounds permitting the competent authorities to disclose confidential 
supervisory information, none of which refer to the disclosure for the purposes of the draft law , 
i.e. disc losure for statistical purposes . The justification of the draft law does not address this  
                                                 
8  Directive 2013/36/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 on access to the activity of 
credit institutions and the prudential supervision of credit institutions and investment firms , amendi ng Directive 
2002/87/EC and repealing Directives 2006/48/EC and 2006/49/EC (OJ L 176, 27.6.2013, p. 338) .  
9  Directive 2004/39/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 April 2004 on markets in financial 
instruments  amending Council Directives 85/611/EEC and 93/6/EEC and Directive 2000/12/EC of the European 
Parliament and of the Council and repealing Council Directive 93/22/EEC (OJ L 145, 30.4.2004, p. 1) .  
10 Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht  v Ewald Baumeister , C-15/16, ECLI:EU: C:2018:464) .  
ECB -PUBLIC  
4 issue in detail  but refers to the concept of access to administrative records for statistical 
purposes .  
2.6 Considering that the definition of ‘ administrative data’  is not stipulated in the draft law, making it 
difficult to define ex ante which type of data could be specified by means of decree of the 
Federal Government as  additional data on economic entities to be transmitted by the 
Bundesbank , it should be considered whether the authorisation may concern confidential  
supervisory data.  
2.7 In addition, the ECB expects the Federal Government to consult the ECB in accordance with 
Article 127(4) of the Treaty before adop ting a decree under  the draft law  that would require 
submi ssion of additional data linked to the ECB’s competence.  
 
3. Submission of statistical data to the ESCB  
The ECB welcomes the provision of a temporary basis for the Federal Statistical Office to share 
statistical data with the members of the ESCB for the purpose of verifying and improving the quality of 
the treatment of multinational enterprise groups in the national accounts and foreign trade statistics of 
the Member States.   
 
This opinion will be published on the ECB’s website.  
 
 
Done at Frankfurt am Main, 3 September  2018.  
 
[signed]  
 
The President of the ECB  
Mario DRAGHI