Opinion of the Committee of the Regions on the 'Proposal for a Council decision on inter-administration telematic networks for statistics relating to the trading of goods between Member States - Edicom - (Commercial Electronic Data Interchange)` (97/C 34/06)

THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS,

Having regard to the Commission proposal to the Council (COM(93) 73 final - SYN 454) ();

Having regard to the Council Decision of 11 July 1994 ();

Having regard to the judgement of the Court of Justice of 26 March 1996 that annulled the Council Decision, deeming that Article 129D(3) of the Treaty was the correct legal basis and not Article 235;

Having regard to the Council Decision of 15 May 1996 to consult the Committee of the Regions on this subject in accordance with Articles 129D(3) and 198C(1) of the Treaty establishing the European Community;

Having regard to its decision of 8 March 1996 to instruct Commission 3 - Transport and Communications Networks - to draw up the Opinion;

Having regard to the Draft Opinion, adopted by Commission 3 on 18 July 1996 (Rapporteur: Mr Latva-Rasku) (CdR 243/96 rev.),

adopted unanimously the following Opinion at its 14th Plenary Session of 18 and 19 September 1996 (meeting of 19 September).

1. Introduction

1.1. The trading of goods between Member States has increased to about two-thirds of their total foreign trade.

1.2. With the creation of the internal market, data on the trading of goods above certain threshold values are now collected directly from businesses. Previously, data on all the foreign trade of Member States were obtained from the authorities responsible for handling customs formalities. Today, the actual producers of data for the statistical system are hundreds of thousands of businesses in different parts of the Community.

1.3. The INTRASTAT system has been established for compiling data on the trading of goods in the internal market, the data being based on monthly statistical returns submitted by the Member States.

1.4. The Edicom programme has been set up to develop a two-way flow of information between the INTRASTAT system and businesses (telematic network for statistics relating to the trading of goods between Member States) by implementing, inter alia, the following measures:

- the design and development of software suitable for the collection and transmission of information and the provision of assistance to Member States in making this software accessible to companies;

- the design and development of software necessary for the acceptance and processing of information and the provision of assistance in making this software accessible to the regional, national and Community bodies responsible for collecting statistical information;

- the design and development of protocols for the exchange of information on the basis of European and international standards;

- the design and documentation of methods, protocols and agreements necessary for data transmission; and

- the promotion of awareness among suppliers of software and other services of the requirements imposed by national and Community statistics.

1.5. There are major differences between Member States in terms of the organization of data collection and the technical infrastructure used by businesses and the national authorities responsible for compiling statistics.

1.6. Edicom differs from many other programmes for developing inter-administration telematic networks in that it seeks to focus on practical applications.

1.7. In establishing the statistical system for internal trade, the Commission has also drawn attention to the compilation of statistical data serving the needs of regional development. It should, however, be borne in mind that in some Member States the location of the enterprise handling the exporting of goods is used as a regional indicator. Consequently, the statistics may not necessarily provide a good picture of the regional distribution of the production of internally traded goods.

OBSERVATIONS AND PROPOSALS

2. Need for up-to-date statistics

2.1. The collection of data on the trading of goods between Member States is necessary for the framing of policies at Community and national level. It is particularly important for decision-making that statistics on internal trade are as up to date as possible so that changes can be reacted to sufficiently quickly.

2.2. The Community's aim is that statistics on internal trade should be ready within ten weeks of the data being reported. This can only be achieved by developing processes based on modern information technology in which data are fed into the system only once and only at the point where they are generated.

2.3. Telematic networks offer an opportunity to develop, in collaboration with the most advanced users, sampling systems in which key data on the internal trade situation and any changes therein can be generated with an acceptable degree of reliability in less than ten weeks.

2.4. In order to reduce the amount of work needed to collect and process the data required, secondary statistical sources should also be used. In particular, the similarities shared by the statistical system for internal trade and the VAT information system offer scope for developing procedures that benefit both the authorities responsible for collecting statistics and the businesses providing data.

3. The statistical system and businesses

3.1. The statistical data system should be designed so as to maximize the potential of administrative data and avoid duplication in the compilation of information. Requests to businesses for statistical data should focus on subjects of general interest, and the businesses should be provided with clear explanations as to why each item of information is collected and for what purpose it is needed.

3.2. Tools have already been developed under the Edicom programme for facilitating the generation and transmission of data by businesses. As the benefits deriving from the saving in working time accrue mainly to the authorities responsible for compiling statistics at regional, national and Community level, the Committee of the Regions feels that it is important that the introduction of this software should not cause any extra costs for businesses.

3.3. Such software can be particularly important for SMEs if it lowers the level of specialist knowledge required for importing and exporting. The Committee of the Regions emphasizes the importance of developing such tools, especially in areas where specialist foreign trade services are not available (e.g. for SMEs), with a view to providing them with an information system that supports import and export activities.

3.4. Today, quite small businesses carry on internal trade at levels which require them to submit statistical returns. These firms often have no separate administrative staff. Rather, all the staff are involved in product development and production. In these cases, the requirement imposed by the public authorities to collect statistical data can seriously jeopardize a firm's ability to operate.

3.5. In addition to the Community and Member States, the private sector, especially original producers of data, has a strong interest in utilizing processed statistics. Therefore the programme should also focus on developing practical and low-cost feedback systems. The aim should to be ensure that data producers and the authorities responsible for regional development have access to feedback data quickly and at minimal cost through telematic networks.

3.6. The Committee of the Regions takes the view that software which has been developed for use by businesses and which benefits their operations will support, at least indirectly, the implementation of information society strategies at local and regional level.

4. Standards and technology

4.1. The Committee of the Regions would also draw attention to the fact that it should be possible for the different information systems currently used by businesses and the authorities responsible for compiling statistics to be connected easily to the statistical system for internal trade. This requires the definition of interfaces based on European standards for data transmission at regional, national and Community level so that solutions based on different systems can be implemented regionally and nationally in accordance with the subsidiarity principle.

4.2. There should be coordination with other development projects so as to ensure that the parties providing data will in the future be able to use the same application and user interface to meet as many as possible of the data transmission requirements imposed by the authorities.

5. Conclusions

5.1. The Committee of the Regions considers it important and useful to develop, with the support of the Community, telematic networks for compiling statistics on the trading of goods between Member States.

5.2. In order to avoid duplication and the use of different standards, there should be close cooperation with similar projects for developing inter-administration telematic networks.

5.3. Businesses need access to the Edicom programme and to practical tools developed in connection with other similar projects so that they can fulfil the tasks assigned to them by the authorities. The Committee of the Regions feels that the linking of the Edicom programme to projects at a more general level could, at this stage, hamper the fulfilment of SMEs' needs and thereby those of the regions.

5.4. In the view of the Committee of the Regions, the speedy provision of summary data to the regions and local businesses in a form which benefits their operations is an area for development which should be accorded the same prominence as data collection. Furthermore, to ease the access of SMEs in all regions to information available through Edicom, the system will need to be designed for use in conjunction with the cheapest and most user-friendly telematic networks and computer programs. This essentially means that information should also be available on the Internet.

5.5. The Committee of the Regions feels that the preparations for telematic networks for compiling statistics on the trading of goods in the internal market suffer from the shortcoming that the Commission documents contain no detailed calculations of the financial benefits that are likely to be generated for the Community and Member States, or for businesses and SMEs, as a result of the implementation of these networks.

5.6. The Committee of the Regions nevertheless requests the Commission to analyze the cost-effectiveness of Edicom with regard to the local and regional dimension in order to avoid unnecessary overloading of work in this area, in particular for the SMEs involved, and it calls on the Commission to submit to it a report on this subject.

Brussels, 19 September 1996.

The Chairman of the Committee of the Regions

Pasqual MARAGALL i MIRA

() OJ No C 87, 27. 3. 1993, p. 10.

() OJ No L 183, 19. 7. 1994, p. 42.