WRITTEN QUESTION E-2380/03 by Christopher Huhne (ELDR) to the Commission. New business formation.
Date: 2003-07-18
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: EU Member State, EU statistics, Japan, United States, business start-up, employment statistics

C 78 E/108

Official Journal of the European Union

EN

27.3.2004

Furthermore, retrofitting of new equipment with components containing the substances restricted by the
RoHS Directive was subject to consideration during the conciliation process but was rejected.

In the Commission’s view, the above-mentioned interpretation of Article 2(3) of the RoHS Directive does
the WEEE Directive. The RoHS Directive is concerned about restricting
not contradict Article 4 of
hazardous substances in new equipment and the WEEE Directive about avoiding a threat to human health
and the environment caused by waste electrical and electronic equipment. The presence of these hazardous
substances in new electrical and electronic equipment would be mutually exclusive to the objectives listed
in Article 4 of the WEEE Directive, namely to encourage recycling and dismantling, for the reasons given
above.

(1) OJ L 37, 13.2.2003.
(2) Article 4(2), 5 and Annex.

(2004/C 78 E/0108)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2380/03

by Christopher Huhne (ELDR) to the Commission

(18 July 2003)

Subject: New business formation

Will the Commission estimate the proportion of the working population engaged in new enterprises (cid:1)
however defined (cid:1) in each Member State, the EU as a whole, and the United States?

Answer given by Mr Solbes Mira on behalf of the Commission

(12 September 2003)

At present, no regular data collection on new enterprises or the number of persons employed in new
enterprises is carried out at European level. Therefore Directorate General Enterprise and Eurostat have
launched a harmonised data collection on ‘Business Demography’ amongst Member States. A table with
first results for reference year 2000 comprising ten Member States is sent direct to the Honourable
Member and to Parliament’s Secretariat.

In the ten Member States for which data is available new enterprises in the market economy created
roughly 1,5 million jobs, equivalent to about 2,8 % of the total number of persons employed in the market
economy in these Member States. In most Member States, especially new enterprises in Construction and
Business Services created a relatively large number of new jobs (cid:1) 4,7 % respectively 4,5 % of the total
number of persons employed in the sector. It should be noted that employment data from Denmark, the
Netherlands and Finland are provided in full-time equivalents (number of persons working less than the
standard working time of a full-year full-time employee are converted into full time equivalents). This
should be taken into consideration when comparing data for the different countries and using the totals of
the ten Member States.

Directorate General Enterprise and Eurostat intend to continue this harmonised data collection among the
Member States on the creation of new enterprises (cid:1) with the scope of enlarging the data collection to all
Member States (cid:1) and, among other indicators, their impact on employment. Data on the proportion of
the working population engaged in new enterprises are included in the design of the data collection. The
results are planned to be included in the Structural Indicators from the 2004 Spring Report.

For the United States of America and Japan no data on the number of persons employed in new
enterprises is available.