Amended proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning Community Statistics in Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) (presented by the Commission pursuant to Article 250 (2) of the EC Treaty)

2001/0293 (COD)

Amended proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL concerning Community Statistics in Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC)

1. Background

13 December 2001:Transmission of the proposal to the Council and to the European Parliament (COM(2001) 754 final - 2001/0293(COD))

24 April 2002:Opinion of the Economic and Social Committee

14 May 2002:Opinion of the European Parliament - first reading

2. Objective of the Commission Proposal

Statistics on income and living conditions and, more precisely, indicators on poverty and social exclusion have been requested at high political level. Articles 136, 137 and 285 of the Treaty establishing the European Community refer to the necessity for Statistics on income, living conditions and social exclusion. Furthermore, the conclusions of the Lisbon (23-24/3/2000), Nice (7-9/12/2000), Stockholm (23-24/3/2001) and Laeken (14-15/12/2001) European Councils have strong support to the eradication of poverty and invited the Council and the Commission to promote a better understanding of social exclusion on the basis of commonly agreed indicators capable of measuring progress.

It is in this context that the Commission has developed the "Programme of Community action to encourage co-operation between Member States to combat social exclusion" to promote the "collection and dissemination of comparable statistics in Member States and at Community level". The European Commission's Communication COM(2000) 594 on Structural Indicators follows the same direction.

For the 1994-2001 period, the European Community Household Panel (ECHP) survey was used to fulfil these political needs. But in view of the need to update the content according to the new political demands, and of the request for operational improvement, i.e. mainly the timeliness of the produced data, the launching of the EU-SILC (Statistics on Income and Living Conditions) project was decided in June 2000.

3. Commission opinion on the amendments adopted by the Parliament

3.1. Amendments accepted by the Commission

The Commission agrees to take into account in its modified proposal the amendments number 1 (on recital 2), 4 (annex I, part 1 (household information), area 'gross income components at household level including gross employee and self-employment income (monetary and non-monetary), gross employers' social insurance contributions, imputed rent, property income, current transfers paid/received, other gross income and interests payments'), 5 (annex I, part 1 (household information), area 'Housing and other arrears'), 6 (annex I, part 1 (household information), area 'non-monetary deprivation indicators including problems in making ends meet, extend of debt and enforced lack of basic necessities'), 8 (annex I, part 1 (household information), area 'Dwelling type, tenure status and housing conditions'), 11 (annex I, part 2 (personal information), area 'Other current job(s)'), 12 (annex I, part 2 (personal information), area 'health (overall status and chronic illness or condition)') adopted by the European Parliament in its plenary session on 14 May 2002.

3.2. Amendments accepted in part or principle by the Commission

Amendment number 2 (on Article 2 (l) Definition of gross income)

The Commission can accept in principle amendment 2 subject to the following rewording:'total gross income covers the total monetary and non-monetary income received by the household over a specific income reference period'.

Amendment number 3 (in Annex I, part 1 (household information), area 'Basic Household data including information on local area')

The Commission can accept in principle amendment 3 subject to the following rewording:'Basic household data including information on the degree of urbanisation'.

Amendment number 7 (in Annex I, part 1 (household information), area 'Physical and social environment (crime, pollution and noise)')

The Commission can accept in principle amendment 7 subject to the following rewording:'Physical and social environment including problems with the accommodation, insecurity, pollution, noise'.

Amendment number 10 (in Annex I, part 2 (personal information), areas 'Basic information on current activity status and on current main job'. 'Basic information on activity status during income reference period')

The Commission can accept in principle amendment 10 subject to the following rewording: 'Basic information on current main activity status and on current main job' and 'Basic cross-sectional information on activity status during income reference period'.

3.3. Amendments not accepted by the Commission

Amendment number 9 (in Annex I, part 2 (personal information), area 'Education (ISCED classification)' and 'Parental education (ISCED classification)')

The Commission agrees to specify that ISCED classification is covered in the education area but does not want to include the parental education.

4. Conclusion

Having regard to Article 250, paragraph 2, of the EC Treaty, the Commission modifies its proposal for the SILC Regulation as indicated above.