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 concerning statistics relating to external trade with non-member countries and repealing Council Regulation (EC) No 1172/95
Date: 2009-02-17
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: EU Member State, EU statistics, European Community, economic policy, export, foreign market, import, third country, trade statistics

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COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES 

Brussels, 17.2.2009 
COM(2009) 75 final 

2007/0233 (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 concerning statistics relating to external trade with non-
member countries and repealing Council Regulation (EC) No 1172/95 

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2007/0233 (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 concerning statistics relating to external trade with non-
member countries and repealing Council Regulation (EC) No 1172/95 

1. 

BACKGROUND 

Date of transmission of the proposal to the EP and the 
Council (document COM(2007) 653 final – 2007/0233 
(COD): 

30 October 2007 

Date of the opinion of the European Central Bank: 

03 March 2008 

Date of the opinion of the European Parliament, first reading: 

23 September 2008 

Date of adoption of the common position: 

16 February 2009 

2. 

OBJECTIVE OF THE COMMISSION PROPOSAL 

External  trade  statistics  (Extrastat)  record  Member  States'  imports  and  exports  of 
goods  with  non-member  countries.  This  information  is  of  essential  importance  for 
European  economic  and  trade  policies  and  for  analysing  market  developments  of 
individual commodities. External trade statistics contain monthly records on imports 
and  exports  expressed  in  value  and  quantity,  broken  down  by  reporting  Member 
State  and  by  partner  country,  by  commodity  according  to  the  Combined 
Nomenclature, by mode of transport and by tariff treatment. 

The  statistics  are  based  on  information  collected  from  customs  declarations.  The 
statistical compilation will be affected by the changes introduced by the Modernised 
Customs Code1. In order to ensure a good quality of the statistics also in the future, 
the  statistical  system  has  to  be  adjusted.  This  is  the  main  purpose  for  repealing 
Council Regulation (EC) No 1172/95 and proposing a new Extrastat Regulation.  

–  The  Regulation  provides  more  precise  information  on  the  data  sources  when 

different Customs simplifications are implemented.  

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Regulation (EC) No 450/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2008 laying 
down the Community Customs Code (OJ L 145, 4.6.2008, p. 1) 

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–  The  Regulation  also  foresees  a  data  exchange  system  between  Member  States, 

which is required under the modernised customs system. 

–  The Regulation will enable to compile and disseminate statistics according to the 
Member  State  of  destination  and  of  actual  export.  This  will  avoid  the 
misallocation  of  trade  affected  by  Centralised  Customs  Clearance  and  the  so-
called 'Rotterdam effect'2. 

–  The Regulation also responds to new user needs by compiling additional statistics 
on trade according to business characteristics, by providing trade broken down by 
invoicing currency and by nature of transaction. This will entail no or only very 
limited additional reporting requirements for respondents.  

–  Finally,  the  Regulation  establishes  a  better  system  of  quality  assessment  for 

external trade statistics. 

3. 

COMMENTS ON THE COMMON POSITION 

3.1. 

General comments 

The  European  Parliament  gave  its  opinion  in  the  first  reading  on  23  October  2008 
with 35 amendments to the Commission proposal. However, 8 amendments (No 1 - 
4, 8, 16, 17 and 19) did not concern all linguistic versions and were therefore not put 
to vote.  

The Commission accepted in full or in principle 24 of the 27 amendments adopted by 
the  European  Parliament  in  its  first  reading.  These  amendments  reinforce  the 
Comitology system or concern the terminology, the legal references and the intention 
(recitals) of the Commission proposal without changing the basic reform objectives. 
They constitute no major obstacle for the Commission.  

As  regards  the  three  remaining  amendments  one  is  partly  accepted  by  the 
Commission and the Council (No 26 on data exchange), another one is incorporated 
in the Common Position (No  18 on the  deletion of collecting "import quotas"), but 
the  'Commission position on EP amendments  at 1st  reading' of 23 September  2008 
recommended  not  to  accept  it.  The  third  amendment  (No  27  on  the  exclusion  of 
collecting statistics if customs applies self assessment) is refused by both institutions: 
the Council and the Commission. 

The  Common  Position  of  the  Council  introduces  some  additional  specifications  on 
the  data  sources,  the  data  exchange  system  and  of  technical  or  drafting  nature.  All 
these modifications can be accepted by the Commission. 

2 

The  'Rotterdam  effect'  means  that  a  foreign  trade  transaction  is  reported  for  EU  statistics  first  as  the 
imports from a non-EU country to the EU Member State where the goods crossed the EU border and 
were released to free circulation. This statistical record is part of Extrastat. The following movement of 
the goods from this EU Member State to the EU Member State which is the final real importing country 
is then recorded as a dispatch (export) and arrival (import) between these two EU Member States within 
Intrastat.  The  'Rotterdam  effect'  exists  as  well  for  Community  exports,  but  to  a  lesser  extent.  The 
'Rotterdam effect' inflates the exports and imports of the EU Member States which are exposed to this 
phenomenon.  

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On the whole the Commission considers that the Common Position does not alter the 
approach or aims of the proposal and can thus support it as it stands. 

3.2. 

Detailed comments 

3.2.1.  Parliamentary amendments accepted by the Commission and incorporated in full, in 

part or in principle in the common position 

Out of the 27 adopted amendments the amendments number 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 
13,  14,  15,  20,  21,  22,  23,  24,  25,  28,  29,  30,  31,  32,  33,  34,  and  35  have  been 
incorporated either exactly like proposed by the Parliamentary amendments or with a 
slightly different wording in the Common Position. Those amendments can be fully 
accepted  by  the  Commission.  They  remove  either  ambiguities  or  specify  the 
Comitology system. 

The  amendment  number  26  is  partly  accepted,  because  the  Commission  agrees 
with  the  overall  objective  of  that  amendment,  which  states  the  responsibility  of 
customs authorities in the mechanism for the statistical data exchange. However, the 
Commission  prefers  the  more  general  wording  as  incorporated  in  the  Common 
Position of the Council. 

3.2.2.  Parliamentary amendments rejected by the Commission but incorporated in full, in 

part or in principle in the common position 

The  Parliamentary  amendment  number  18  removes  the  collection  of  "import 
quotas"  from  the  data  set.  The  Common  Position  does  not  consider  its  collection 
either. Since these data are very important for monitoring the Community trade and 
agriculture  policies  with  regard  to  its  WTO  obligations,  in  particular  as  far  as 
notifications  to  the  WTO  of  the  quota  fill  of  EU  bound  tariff  rate  quotas  are 
concerned, the Commission would insist on the need for this information to be made 
available through this Regulation. 

3.2.3.  Parliamentary  amendments  accepted  in  full,  in  part  or  in  principle  by  the 

Commission but not incorporated in the common position 

None 

3.2.4.  Parliamentary  amendments  rejected  by  the  Commission  and  the  Council  and  not 

incorporated in the common position 

The Commission shares the Council's concern in relation to amendment number 27 
which  excludes  the  transmission  of  some  import  and  export  data  to  Eurostat  when 
specific customs simplifications are applied. The implementation of this amendment 
would lead to a partial coverage of trade and thus to a considerable deterioration of 
the quality of the data. 

3.2.5.  Changes made by the Council to the Proposal 

The Council proposed the following main changes to the Commission proposal: 

–  Statistics in the case of simplified customs formalities and controls: The Council 
inserted a new recital 3 which explains that complete statistics will be maintained 

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as  well  for  trade  affected  by  customs  simplifications  which  lead  to  the  non 
availability  of  customs  declarations.  Article  4  on  data  sources  is  adjusted  to  the 
simplifications  stated  in  the  Modernised  Customs  Code.  In  particular  the  new 
Article  4(2)  specifies  that  operators  granted  simplifications  should  provide  the 
data for the statistics. Article 4 (5) and 5 (4) aim at minimising the administrative 
burden on trade related to the data collection process. 

–  Data  exchange  between  Member  States:  The  Council  inserted  specifications  in 
order  to  make  a  future  statistical  data  exchange  system  better  workable.  Recital 
number 4 makes a reference to the "e- customs" decision and its implication for 
statistics.  Article  7(2)  states  that  customs  authorities  should  ensure  the  data 
exchange  between  the  Member  State  of  declaration  and  the  Member  State  of 
destination  /  actual  export.  The  starting  date  of  such  a  data  exchange  system  is 
aligned to the progress made in the implantation of the automated customs import 
and export system. 

–  Other  changes:  the  Council  in  its  Common  Position  introduced  several 
modifications of a purely technical or drafting nature. Some of the changes lead to 
a  restructuring  of  the  proposal  and  a  subsequent  re-numbering  of  recitals  and  of 
paragraphs in some articles. 

4. 

CONCLUSION 

The  changes  introduced  by  the  Council's  Common  Position  are  acceptable  to  the 
Commission,  except  the  removal  of  "import  quotas",  the  availability  of  which  the 
Commission would insist upon. 

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