Commission Regulation (EC) No 97/2009 of 2 February 2009 implementing Regulation (EC) No 295/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning structural business statistics, as regards the use of the flexible module (Text with EEA relevance)
Date: 2009-02-02
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: EU statistics, branch of activity, codification of EU law, company structure, competitiveness, statistical method

L 33/6

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

3.2.2009

COMMISSION REGULATION (EC) No 97/2009

of 2 February 2009

implementing Regulation (EC) No 295/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council
concerning structural business statistics, as regards the use of the flexible module

(Text with EEA relevance)

THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES,

HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:

Having regard to the Treaty
Community,

establishing the European

Having regard to Regulation (EC) No 295/2008 of the European
Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2008 concerning
structural business statistics (1), and in particular Article 3(4)
thereof,

Whereas:

Article 1

The flexible module referred to in Article 3(2)(j) of Regulation
(EC) No 295/2008 shall be used to produce statistics on access
to finance by businesses. The scope of the data collection shall
be enterprises in the non-financial business community with 10
to 249 persons employed in 2005 and which were still active in
2008 and have 10 or more persons employed in the reference
period as stated in Article 6, and as sub-populations high-
growth enterprises (average annualised employment growth of
more than 20 % per annum over the period from 2005 to
2008) and ‘gazelles’
(high-growth enterprises that are up to
five years old), first established in 2003 or 2004.

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

Regulation (EC) No 295/2008 established a common
framework for the collection, compilation, transmission
and evaluation of Community statistics on the structure,
activity, competitiveness and performance of businesses
in the Community.

Article 2

In order to limit the burden on businesses and the costs to the
Member States, existing data from administrative sources shall
be used, if possible.

It is necessary to plan the use of the flexible module
referred to in Article 3(2)(j) of that Regulation in close
cooperation with Member States and to decide its scope,
list of characteristics, reference period, activities to be
covered and quality requirements.

that European enterprises

Access to finance is a major policy constraint in most
Member States and the Community alike. There is strong
evidence
from a
financing gap, especially if they grow fast or if they are
characterised as young firms. Therefore statistics are
needed to enable the situation of these enterprises to
be analysed in comparison to all small and medium-
sized enterprises. These data should be extracted from
existing sources if possible.

suffer

Any further necessary technical details will be subject to
elaborated by the
guidelines
Commission (Eurostat)
cooperation with
Member States.

and recommendations
in close

Article 3

The characteristics included in the data collection shall be:

(a)

the relevance of the ownership situation at the start of the
enterprise and at the observation time for access to finance;

(b) the degree and success rates of all attempts to obtain
financing and the
internal and external

various sorts of
reasons for not obtaining such financing;

(c)

the extent of guarantees for business loans;

(d) the perception by the owner/manager of

the cost and
burden of obtaining business loans and of the enterprise’s
financial situation;

(e)

the importance of
institution
the choice of
(geographic proximity, in particular cross-border situations,
foreign vs. domestic ownership, prior client status, etc.);

financial

The measures provided for in this Regulation are in
accordance with
Statistical
the
Programme Committee,

opinion

the

of

(1) OJ L 97, 9.4.2008, p. 13.

(f)

the debt/turnover ratio and other correlations of finance
characteristics
their
enterprise
in the
importance for future business growth;

accounts

and

3.2.2009

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Official Journal of the European Union

L 33/7

(g) the perceived need for future financing and its forms and

the reasons for this need;

(h) the perceived link of finance options and their availability

and perspectives for employment growth;

(i)

(j)

the perception of overall administrative burden on enter­
prises;

the effort required to reply to a questionnaire (if any) on
access to finance.

Article 4

Activities to be covered shall be the following aggregates of the
common statistical classification of economic activities in the
European Community as established by Regulation (EC) No
1893/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council (1)
(NACE Rev. 2), insofar as they constitute market activities:

(a) B to E (industry);

(b) F (construction);

(c) G to N (services, aggregated except J, K (financial services)

and M);

(d) J (ICT services);

Those Community provisions shall apply to the treatment of
the results, insofar as they include confidential data. The data
shall be transmitted in electronic form. The transmission format
shall be in conformity with the interchange standards specified
by the Commission (Eurostat). Data shall be transmitted or
uploaded by electronic means to the single entry point for
data, maintained by the Commission (Eurostat).

Article 6

The reference period shall be that period in 2010 during which
the data are either gathered from existing sources or collected
from enterprises.

Article 7

The quality requirement shall be the delivery of data sets
covering the following number of statistical units per partici­
pating Member State:

— Germany, Spain, France, Italy and United Kingdom: 1 800
respondent enterprises each, or the equivalent in existing
data;

— Belgium, Bulgaria,

Ireland, Greece, Netherlands, Poland,
Slovakia and Sweden: 900 respondent enterprises each, or
the equivalent in existing data;

— Denmark and Finland: 500 respondent enterprises each, or

(e) M (professional, scientific, technical services).

the equivalent in existing data;

Article 5

the results on the characteristics

The competent national authorities in Member States shall
transmit
referred to in
Article 3 of this Regulation, including confidential data, to the
existing
Commission (Eurostat)
Community provisions on transmission of data subject
to
statistical
in particular Council Regulation
(Euratom, EEC) No 1588/90 of 11 June 1990 on the trans­
mission of data subject
to statistical confidentiality to the
Statistical Office of the European Communities (2).

in accordance with the

confidentiality,

— Latvia and Lithuania: 300 respondent enterprises each, or

the equivalent in existing data;

— Cyprus and Malta: 233 respondent enterprises each, or the

equivalent in existing data.

Article 8

This Regulation shall enter into force on the 20th day following
its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.

This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.

Done at Brussels, 2 February 2009.

For the Commission

Joaquín ALMUNIA
Member of the Commission

(1) OJ L 393, 30.12.2006, p. 1.
(2) OJ L 151, 15.6.1990, p. 1.