Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament pursuant to the second subparagraph of Article 251 (2) of the EC Treaty concerning the common position of the Council on the adoption of a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a common framework for business registers for statistical purposes and repealing Council Regulation (EEC) No 2186/93
Date: 2007-07-10
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: EU statistics, company structure, directory, information system, statistical method, type of business

COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES 

Brussels, 10.7.2007 
COM(2007) 389 final 

2005/0032 (COD) 

COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION 
TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT 

pursuant to the second subparagraph of Article 251 (2) of the EC Treaty 

concerning the 

common position of the Council on the adoption of a Regulation of the European 
Parliament and of the Council establishing a common framework for business registers 
for statistical purposes and repealing Council Regulation (EEC) No 2186/93 

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2005/0032 (COD) 

COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION 
TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT 

pursuant to the second subparagraph of Article 251 (2) of the EC Treaty 

concerning the 

common position of the Council on the adoption of a Regulation of the European 
Parliament and of the Council establishing a common framework for business registers 
for statistical purposes and repealing Council Regulation (EEC) No 2186/93 

(Text with relevance for the EEA) 

1. 

BACKGROUND 

Proposal  submitted  to  the  European  Parliament  and  to  the 
Council (COM(2005)112 –– 2005/0032 (COD)) 

Opinion of the European Parliament (first reading) : 
(PE A6-0194/2006 

5 April 2005 

1 June 2006 

Adoption of the common position by the Council : 

21 May 2007 

2. 

AIM OF THE COMMISSION PROPOSAL 

The  objective  of  the  proposal  is  to  update  the  existing  Regulation  on  business 
registers  (Council  Regulation  (EEC)  No  2186/93)  in  order  to  account  of  new 
requirements. In particular, three kinds of additional requirements have progressively 
emerged: 

–  globalisation  of  the  economy  has  created  the  need  to  collect  information  on 

enterprise groups; 

–  the integration of activities of the different sectors has called for a full coverage of 

the whole economy; 

–  the  Single  Market  requires  improved  statistical  comparability,  which  notably 
depends on the availability of harmonised sources for the population of businesses 
operating in the EU. 

The  Commission  proposal  is  intended  to  repeal  Council  Regulation  (EEC)  No 
2186/93. 

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3. 

COMMENTS ON THE COMMON POSITION 

3.1. 

General 

At  first  reading,  the  European  Parliament  approved  the  Commission's  proposal 
subject  to  22  amendments.  The  great  majority  of  these  amendments  was  of  an 
editorial or minor technical nature that did not affect the substance of the proposal. 

3.2. 

Decisions on the European Parliament's amendments after first reading 

The  Commission  has  agreed  to  the  amendments  proposed  by  the  Parliament.  The 
European Parliament's resolution adopts a positive approach to this proposal with the 
great  majority  of  the  22  amendments  being  in  the  nature  of  technical  and  editorial 
clarifications.  The  Council  has  endorsed  these  amendments  within  its  common 
position. 

3.3. 

New provisions introduced by the Council and the Commission's position. 

On  17  July  2006,  the  Council  adopted  Decision  2006/512/EC  amending  Council 
Decision 1999/468/EC of 28 June 1999 laying down the procedures for the exercise 
of  implementing  powers  conferred  on  the  Commission  and  introducing  a  new 
procedure named "regulatory procedure with scrutiny" (Article 5a). 

The  new  Committee  procedure  has  to  be  followed  to  adopt  measures  of  general 
scope which seek to amend non-essential elements of a basic instrument adopted in 
accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 251 of the Treaty, inter alia by 
deleting some of those elements or by supplementing the instrument by the addition 
of new non-essential elements. 

New  provisions  introduced  by  the  Council  refer  to  the  implementing  powers 
conferred to the Commission when the new procedure has to apply. 

In particular, powers are conferred on the Commission to update the list of registers 
characteristics in the Annex, their definitions and their continuity rules, to decide on 
the  coverage  of  the  smallest  enterprises  and  all-resident  enterprise  groups,  the 
establishment of common quality standards, as well as the content and periodicity of 
the quality reports, and to adopt the rules for updating registers. These measures of 
general scope designed to amend non-essential elements of this Regulation should be 
adopted  in  accordance  with  the  regulatory  procedure  with  scrutiny  laid  down  to  in 
Article 5a of Council Decision 1999/468/EC. 

The sentence "It shall apply from 1 January 2007" was omitted from Article 18 due 
to  the  delay  in  the  adoption  of  the  Regulation;  its  purpose  was  to  specify  the 
application date for the future, not retroactive application. The Regulation shall apply 
20 days after its publication. 

The Commission accepts these new provisions. 

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4. 

CONCLUSION 

Under  these  conditions  and  for  the  reasons  set  out  above,  the  Commission  hereby 
expresses  a  favourable  opinion  on  the  common  position  of  the  Council  adopted 
unanimously. 

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