Opinion of the Committee of the Regions on the "Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the establishment of a common classification of territorial units for statistics (NUTS)"
Date: 2001-11-15
Institutions: European Committee of the Regions
Subjects: EU statistics, Eurostat, national statistics, regional and local authorities, statistical method

C 107/54

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

3.5.2002

Opinion of the Committee of the Regions on the ‘Proposal for a Regulation of the European
Parliament and of the Council on the establishment of a common classification of territorial units
for statistics (NUTS)’

(2002/C 107/17)

THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS,

having regard to the Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the
establishment of a common classification of territorial units for statistics (NUTS) [COM(2001) 83 final —
2001-0046 (COD)];

having regard to the decision of the Council of 12 March 2001 to consult it under Article 265(1) of the
Treaty establishing the European Community;

having regard to the decision of its president of 16 May 2001 to instruct Commission 1 (Regional Policy,
Structural Funds, Economic and Social Cohesion and Cross-border and Inter-regional Cooperation) to
draw up an opinion on the matter;

having regard to its opinion of 15 February 2001 on the structure and goals of European regional policy
in the context of enlargement and globalisation: opening of the debate (CdR 157/2000 fin) (1);

having regard to the draft opinion adopted by Commission 1 on 4 October 2001 (CdR 182/2001 rev.)
(rapporteur: Mr Martini, President of the Tuscany Region, I-PSE);

whereas

— regional and local authorities responsible for implementing a wide range of Community policies
have long been using Eurostat’s statistical classifications as a reference for both defining areas for
intervention under the Structural Funds, and putting programmes into practice and evaluating their
results;

— regional statistics are a cornerstone of the European statistical system; they are used for a wide range
of purposes and by a wide range of users. The regional data of the EU Member States are, inter alia,
used for allocating structural funds in a rational and consistent way. Hence, regional statistics are
the objective statistical base for important political decisions;

— the absence, to date, of a legal benchmark for defining the common classification of territorial units
for statistics (NUTS) has introduced uncertainty into the references underpinning programmes, and
the recent changes in the NUTS classification in some countries have in some cases generated
tensions and misunderstandings;

— the lack so far of criteria setting out in detail the rules for compiling and updating the system have
given rise to ‘gentlemen’s agreements’ between the Member States and Eurostat, sometimes after
long and difficult negotiations and which, in some cases, have not been to the liking of other
Member States. Recent changes in the NUTS classification have in fact provoked some tension
between the Commission and the national statistical offices concerned;

— these agreements, gradually reached over a period of time, have had the effect of creating areas of
marked disparity within the European Union in the way statistics are viewed at the different NUTS
levels;

(1) OJ C 148, 10.5.2000, p. 25.

3.5.2002

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 107/55

— as the entry of a large number of new Member States to the Union approaches, it would be
appropriate to set criteria for defining the reference territorial units (NUTS), in order to define a
consistent regional breakdown of territory for statistical purposes including the applicant countries,

adopted the following opinion at its 41st plenary session of 14 and 15 November 2001 (meeting of
15 November).

The Committee of the Regions

takes note of the European Commission’s initiative in
1.
proposing a regulation on a common classification of the
territorial units for statistics, and welcomes it as an important
step forward towards European integration. This outwardly
purely technical aspect in fact has major implications for local
and regional government;

agrees with the reasons put forward by the Commission
for the proposal: regional statistics are the

2.
and Eurostat
objective statistical base for important political decisions;

3.
upholds the principle that existing administrative units
within the Member States constitute the first criterion to be
used for the definition of regions, and also considers it
reasonable that, if for a given level of NUTS no administrative
units of a suitable scale exist in a Member State, this NUTS
level should be constituted by aggregating an appropriate
number of existing smaller administrative units;

4.
suggests that parameters other than population, such as
surface area, administrative structure or density of population,
should also be used as criteria for NUTS definitions;

5.
emphasises at any event that in Member States with a
federal structure or where the regions possess broad responsi-
bilities and a high level of autonomy, the regions themselves
should be considered to have NUTS 1 status, as is the case in
Germany and Belgium;

6.
expresses its reservations at the political slant the Com-
mission wishes to give to the regulation in fixing the current
state of the NUTS breakdown of regions in the Member States
as it has developed over the last 20 years, thereby perpetuating
the anomaly of widely disparate NUTS situations among the
current 15 Member States;

8.
in this regard, views the Commission’s treatment of the
present classification for the 15 Member States, compared
with its proposals for the applicant countries, to be contradic-
tory. For the applicant countries, NUTS 2 are proposed which
in keeping with the
are everywhere very similar in size,
principles set out in the draft regulation for reliable and
homogeneous statistics, while for the present 15 Member
States, existing serious anomalies — within individual
countries, as well as across the Union — are endorsed;

9.
draws attention to the fact that, when forming territorial
units, the applicant countries should not focus exclusively on
the units’ statistical nature and purpose. Territorial units must
be formed from democratically governed regions;

regrets the failure to take account of

the special
10.
situation of islands, and — without going so far as to classify
small coastal
islands as autonomous NUTS territories —
proposes more specific statistical and geographic recognition
of island regions and of outlying regions which are physically
separate from the continent of Europe;

11.
strongly calls for the basic level of economic and social
organisation in all the present and future EU Member States
— the municipality or other appropriate form of
local
authority — to be included, as NUTS level 5, in the European
statistical classification. This would provide basic identifying
information for all EU municipalities, bringing European
policies into close and practical contact with the general public
and the areas they live in; to this end, it might be appropriate to
establish NUTS level 4 as an intermediate level encompassing
groups of municipalities with similar population characteristics
such as population level or density, income, economic activity
or level of education;

harbours serious doubts regarding the definition of the
7.
average population thresholds according to which different
institutional arrangements are assigned to the various NUTS
categories, since these statistical averages rarely bear any
resemblance to real circumstances and, in particular, because
application of this technical criterion overrides the fundamen-
tal principle of institutional autonomy;

12.
considers that the general approach of the Commission
and Eurostat offers a low political profile and its content
focuses too narrowly on technical aspects. It therefore pro-
poses that a wide-ranging and in-depth debate on classification
be launched among the present Member States, with the full
involvement of the European Parliament, which is directly
implicated in the codecision procedure, and the national
statistical bodies;

C 107/56

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

3.5.2002

13.
having also observed the lack of urgency in adopting
the regulation, which must be in force when the first new
accessions occur, therefore suggests that its members and
more generally regional and local authorities and their official
statistical bodies throughout the EU, together with the Euro-

pean Parliament, national statistical bodies and the relevant
Commission departments, assess whether the current NUTS
classification is appropriate to the emerging challenges and
demands of EU institutional reform and renewal of Community
policies in the run-up to 2006 and beyond.

Brussels, 15 November 2001.

The President

of the Committee of the Regions

Jos CHABERT

Opinion of the Committee of the Regions on the ‘Annual Report on the Cohesion Fund (1999)’

(2002/C 107/18)

THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS,

having regard to the Commission’s Annual Report on the Cohesion Fund (1999) — COM(2000) 822
final — C5-0109/2001;

having regard to Council Regulation (EEC) No 1164/1994 of 16 May 1994 establishing the Cohesion
Fund;

having regard to the sixth periodic report on the social and economic situation and the development of
the regions of the EU (SEC(1999) 66 final);

having regard to the European Spatial Development Perspective, as adopted by the informal Council in
Potsdam on 10-11 May 1999;

having regard to the second report on economic and social cohesion (COM(2001) 24 final);

having regard to the Commission’s decision of 11 January 2001 to consult the Committee of the Regions
for an opinion on this subject, in accordance with Article 265 (1) of the Treaty establishing the European
Community;

having regard to the decision taken by its President on 6 March 2001 to assign the preparation of an
opinion to Commission 1 — Regional Policy, Structural Funds, Economic and Social Cohesion and Cross-
border and Inter-Regional Cooperation;

having regard to the draft opinion adopted by Commission 1 on 4 October 2001 (CdR 183/2001 rev. 2,
rapporteur: Mr Bree, Member of Sligo County Council, Member of Border Regional Authority IRL/PES);

whereas according to Article 2 of the EC Treaty, economic and social cohesion is one of the principal
objectives of the European Union (EU);

whereas Article 158 of the EC Treaty commits the EU to strengthening economic and social cohesion,
reducing disparities between levels of development of the various regions and promoting the development
of the least-favoured regions;

whereas in order to pursue this objective more effectively, Article 130d (now Article 161) of the
Maastricht Treaty established a Cohesion Fund;