EUROPEAN COMMISSION Brussels, 24.8.2021 COM(2021) 489 final REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL on the implementation of Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 on Community statistics on migration and international protection











1.Introduction Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 (‘the Regulation’) establishes common rules for producing European statistics on migration and international protection in the European Union (EU). These statistics cover international migration flows to, from and inside the EU, migrant population stocks in the EU as well as acquisition and loss of citizenship of an EU Member State. They also cover asylum and managed migration statistics that concern: ·asylum applications, including those by unaccompanied minors, first instance decisions and appeal decisions granting or withdrawing various forms of international protection status, and persons resettled to the EU; ·statistics on Member States’ applying the Dublin III Regulation; ·non-EU (third-country) nationals refused entry to the Member State at the external border or found to be illegally present under national immigration legislation; ·residence permits issued to third-country nationals, length of permit validity and reason (immigration category) for the permit being issued; and ·third-country nationals ordered to leave the territory of a Member State under immigration legislation or recorded as departing after the issue of such an order, disaggregated by citizenship. Article 12 of the Regulation requires that ‘By 20 August 2012 and every three years thereafter, the Commission shall submit a report to the European Parliament and the Council on the statistics compiled pursuant to this Regulation and on their quality.’ This is the Commission’s fourth report on the implementation of the Regulation, following the reports adopted in 2012, 2015, and 2018. It provides information on the progress that Member States, together with the Commission (Eurostat), have made to implement the Regulation since 2018 and presents the next steps to further improve the quality of these statistics. Section 2 briefly outlines the most important developments. Section 3 addresses general progress and quality aspects of statistics produced for reference periods between 2018 and 2020. Section 4 focuses on ongoing work to implement revised statistics requirements for reference periods from 2021 onwards and new initiatives to address evolving policy needs over the coming years. Section 5 concludes the report and outlines next steps. 2.Most important developments since 2018 After a period of continued improvements leading up to the previous 2018 report, general data availability and quality – in particular completeness, timeliness, comparability and accuracy – have stabilised at a high level across all data collections. However, due to the rapidly changing nature of migration, new needs have arisen in the EU for more timely and more detailed statistics on asylum, returns, resettlement and residence permits. In May 2018, the Commission adopted a proposal for a Regulation amending the Regulation to extend the data requirements on asylum and managed migration. Regulation (EU) 2020/851 substantially updates asylum and managed migration statistics in terms of new variables, more detailed breakdowns and more frequent data collections for reference periods from 2021 onwards. The new requirements were to be gradually introduced from that Regulation’s date of entry into force on 12 July 2020 through to 1 July 2021. In line with Article 11a of the Regulation, the Commission granted temporary derogations to 16 Member States upon justified requests. Eurostat will regularly monitor the progress on necessary adaptations in national production systems in affected Member States. Data availability has already improved with the release of monthly (asylum applications) and quarterly (asylum first instance decisions, returns) data from March 2021 onwards. New requirements for mandatory data collections on asylum and managed migration must be implemented for all applicable reference periods from January 2021 onwards. To ensure a smooth process, Eurostat worked with national experts during 2020 to revise the relevant technical guidelines for data collections accordingly and, in November 2020, the Expert Group endorsed all new versions. Moreover, all production processes are being updated in line with respective timelines for the revised monthly, quarterly and annual data collections – including updated methodologies, reporting templates, data transmission procedures and formats, and validation rules. As required by Article 9b of the Regulation, the Commission is providing financial contributions from the EU budget to support necessary development or implementation actions in Member States. The relevant instruments are grants provided by Eurostat and support under the new Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund. Furthermore, Eurostat and Member States have continued to invest in data quality and methodological improvements. Firstly, work has progressed on the misclassification of demographic events; the inclusion/exclusion of asylum seekers and refugees; cross-domain coherence between migration, asylum and residence permits data; and ensuring a consistent demographic balance. Secondly, voluntary data collections were set up to address quickly evolving policy needs and thus maintain high relevance in the short term, including data on unaccompanied minors applying for asylum, on returns by quarter, and on migration from/to the new composition of the EU following the United Kingdom’s withdrawal. Most recently, with the COVID-19 pandemic, Member States and Eurostat have ensured that data transmissions and publications respect their release calendar. The technical improvements have helped to maintain the high relevance of statistical outputs but also to make data validation and processing more efficient. Alongside this, with the continued regular collection of extensive quality metadata it is possible to assess and monitor the quality of incoming data. When necessary, administrative letters were sent to ensure compliance with the legal obligations. 3.Quality of the statistics produced To disseminate these European statistics, the Commission (Eurostat) has continued to work closely with all relevant national authorities. National statistical institutes are the main suppliers of statistics on migration flows, acquisitions of citizenship and population stocks. Statistics on residence permits and asylum usually come directly from interior ministries or immigration services. Statistics on border controls and the removal of unauthorised migrants are also provided by interior ministries or immigration services, or else by police authorities. To evaluate the quality of the incoming data, Eurostat collects extensive metadata and quality information from Member States. The resulting national metadata reports, which are public, serve as an aid for quality checks, evaluation and further improvements. They help users to interpret and use the statistics correctly. In the following sections, various quality dimensions are addressed separately.

3.1.Relevance Since the 2018 report, the data transmissions have generally remained at a very high level of completeness. Some issues nevertheless remain, mostly for statistics on Dublin procedures. Statistics on migration and international protection are used for EU policies on migration, home affairs, employment, social affairs, justice, external relations, and human rights. The Commission relies on the data to prepare regular reports, policy proposals and implementation reports required under EU legislation and to carry out policy analysis. For the period 2014-2020, statistics under the Regulation were used to determine budgetary allocations to Member States under the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (applicants for international protection, grants of protection status, issuance of authorisations to stay for specific reasons, returns) and the Internal Security Fund – Borders and Visa (number of persons crossing external borders, third-country nationals refused entry at external borders). Similar allocation rules are envisaged again for some new EU funds during 2021-2027. National funding allocations under the new Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (see footnote 10) rely on Eurostat’s latest annual statistics (covering the preceding 3 calendar years) on persons who applied for or were granted international protection, persons resettled, number of legally residing third-country nationals, first residence permits, persons obliged to leave, and persons returned. The new Border Management and Visa Policy Instrument (as part of the Integrated Border Management Fund) relies on the latest European statistics on third-country nationals refused entry at external land or sea borders or at airports. Migration-related EU agencies such as Frontex and the European Asylum Support Office, with whom Eurostat works closely on data collection and statistical methodology, also use these statistics. Further examples are the publications of the Knowledge Centre on Migration and Demography, which operates under the Commission’s Joint Research Centre, and of the European Migration Network. Eurostat is a leading contributor with statistics to such publications. Finally, regular users of the statistics include national administrations, international organisations, academic researchers and civil society groups working on a wide range of topics, including the integration of immigrants, the development and monitoring of national asylum and immigration procedures, and population and labour force projections. 3.2.Accuracy In general, Member States are constantly maintaining or even improving statistical accuracy at a high level. Specific accuracy issues remain, however, for international migration data. These relate both to under-coverage (i.e. persons who do not register in their place of residence) and over-coverage (i.e. persons who do not deregister, as there is often no obligation or incentive to do so). To further improve accuracy in this domain, Member States exchange data with other Member States, and use estimation techniques and additional administrative data sources. Freedom of movement within the EU and issues related to personal data protection constrain further improvements in the quality of migration statistics, especially in relation to EU citizens who move and reside in another Member State. 3.3.Timeliness and punctuality Depending on the type of data concerned, the deadline to supply data is between 2 and 12 months after the reference date or the end of the reference period. Automated extraction procedures at national level and regular monitoring by Eurostat generally ensure the punctual provision of data. In particular, data transmission deadlines are generally observed, with mostly constant or slightly improving trends since 2018, with some issues remaining only for statistics on Dublin procedures. Other non-recurring issues remain rare, for instance isolated disruptions due to staff unavailability or computing system failures. The COVID-19 pandemic did not affect the implementation of the release calendar. 3.4.Accessibility The statistical data and metadata are freely available on Eurostat’s website under the theme Population. Moreover, these statistics feature in regularly updated Statistics Explained articles and in compendium publications like Key figures on Europe (2020 edition) or the 2020 Report on the impact of demographic change (presenting data on migration flows and population stock by citizenship). Statistics produced under the Regulation remain among the most widely consulted European statistics. Since 2016, ‘international migration statistics’ has ranked first among the thematic sections on the website, with a constantly high user interest to this day. Similarly, on the Statistics Explained website, the rolling article on migration and migrant population statistics has established itself since 2016 as one of the most visited pages. Since 2018, Eurostat has produced 42 publications on asylum and managed migration. The Statistics Explained rolling article on annual asylum statistics has been highly popular with around 200 000 views per year since 2018. These statistics are also very visible in Eurostat’s social media channels. 3.5.Comparability Methodological and compilation guidelines have long been in place and have been regularly improved for statistics on international migration, the acquisition of citizenship, asylum, the enforcement of immigration legislation, and residence permits. They help Member States to ensure comparability that is generally in accordance with EU legislation and international recommendations. International migration statistics continue to be highly consistent with the demographic data collections covered by Regulation (EU) No 1260/2013, following an agreement reached with Member States to apply the same age definitions and breakdowns, and on the definition of EU aggregates. To ensure comparability, Eurostat verifies whether the received data are consistent internally and over time, and whether they are comparable between regions and countries. Regarding comparability between countries, the Regulation establishes harmonised definitions for migration flow data. Problems applying specific definitions for the statistics on migration flows and acquisition of citizenship have been among the hardest to address. Since the 2018 report, the data sent have generally remained highly compliant for statistics on migration and acquisition of citizenship. Nevertheless, the migrant population data under the Regulation can be based on definitions of either usual residence or legal or registered residence. This flexibility is used to obtain a fully consistent set of population data at national level at the expense of reduced comparability between countries (see Section 3.6). This is one of the starting points for wider definitional and conceptual harmonisation in statistics for demography and international migration (see Section 4.2). Regarding asylum and managed migration statistics, Member States generally have a good level of compliance with definitions. Some specific issues persist in a few Member States, but mostly at the level of breakdown sub-categories. Eurostat, in cooperation with national experts, is preparing a dedicated glossary to further harmonise these domains. This work is already very advanced, and the glossary is expected to be published in 2021. 3.6.Coherence The Regulation leaves Member States to define the migrant population as being either usually resident or, in default, legally or registered resident. Regulation (EU) No 1260/2013 requires Member States to ensure that population data under its Article 3 are consistent with migrant population data required under Article 3(1)(c) of Regulation (EC) No 862/2007, as statisticians and demographers systematically use these population data together. However, general issues remain. For example, due to a current gap in harmonisation across legal bases, the definitions and applications of the population base between international migration flows and other demographic statistics are insufficiently coherent. This will be a crucial point when wider definitional and conceptual harmonisation in population statistics as a whole – covering census, demography and international migration – is addressed more comprehensively at EU level (see Section 4.2). Since 2018, Eurostat has also made efforts to assess both intra-domain consistency (e.g. in asylum or residence permits domains) and cross-domain coherence (between asylum, residence permits and international migration statistics). In this work, both synergies and differences were identified between statistics on first-time residence permits issued to third-country nationals and statistics on long-term international migration of third-country nationals. More detailed findings are published in the Eurostat metadata and were presented to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Work Session on Migration Statistics in 2018.