COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF THE IMPACT ASSESSMENT Accompanying the document Strategy for Agricultural Statistics 2020 and beyond and subsequent potential legislative scenarios
Date: 2016-12-09
Institutions: European Commission, Eurostat
Subjects: EU statistics, agricultural holding, agricultural statistics, agricultural structure, data collection, data protection, personal data, statistical method

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   EUROPEAN COMMISSION  Brussels, 9.12.2016  SWD(2016) 429 final   COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF THE IMPACT ASSESSMENT  Accompanying the document Strategy for Agricultural Statistics 2020 and beyond and subsequent potential legislative scenarios {COM(2016) 786 final} {SWD(2016) 430 final}  
 
 
Executive Summary Sheet 

Impact assessment on a strategy for Agricultural Statistics 2020 and beyond and subsequent potential legislative 
scenarios 

A. Need for action 

Why? What is the problem being addressed?  

Globalisation,  climate  and  social  change  are  changing  world  agriculture.  In  reaction,  the  Common  Agricultural 
Policy (CAP) and other related EU policies are changing as well. This creates new data needs for agricultural 
statistics  which  are  currently  not  fulfilled  due  to  rigid  legislation  and  incoherence  between  data  collections. 
Furthermore,  official  statistics  are  also  changing  due  to  technological  progress  and  new  data  sources  while 
resources continue to be cut. This puts pressure on agricultural statistics legislation to adapt to achieve higher 
cost-efficiency and reduce the burden of data collection. 
If these problems are not solved, the evidence basis of the CAP and other EU policies would be endangered, 
limiting the EU's ability to act in areas of crucial importance for all EU citizens. The stakeholders affected most 
directly by this initiative are Commission policy DGs like AGRI, ENV, CLIMA and SANTE, and National Statistical 
Institutes (NSIs) in EU Member States. 

What is this initiative expected to achieve?  

The  initiative  aims  at  renewed  legislation  to  serve  new  data  needs  flexibly,  make  agricultural  statistics  more 
harmonised and coherent, and address the burden of providing data by 
  Producing high-quality statistics that meet users' needs efficiently and effectively 
Increasing the flexibility and reaction speed of the agricultural statistics system 
 
 
Improving the integration between agricultural, forestry, land use and environmental statistics 
  Developing a responsive and responsible governance structure for agricultural statistics 
Improving the harmonisation and coherence of European agricultural statistics and 
 
  Producing  more  statistics  while  lowering  the  burden  on  respondents  by  exploring  alternative  data  sources 

and efficiency improvement techniques. 

What is the value added of action at the EU level?  

Harmonised EU policies such as the CAP, a policy using almost 40% of the EU budget, need ipso facto high-
quality  data  comparable  across  Member  States  to  target  policy  interventions  most  efficiently,  effectively  and 
fairly. This can only be ensured by common and coordinated action in the European Statistical System (ESS). 

B. Solutions 

What legislative and non-legislative policy options have been considered? Is there a preferred 
choice or not? Why? 

Four main options have been considered: 
1.  Baseline – No EU action on structural data of agriculture: This option would leave the collection of the data 

to Member States, resulting in a patchwork of different approaches and qualities.  

2.  Prolongation of the FSS Regulation (EC) No 1166/2008: This option would continue the status quo. 
3.  Single legal framework for all agricultural statistics: This option would integrate all agricultural statistics data 

collection in a single new framework regulation. 

4.  Two-step  integration of  agricultural  statistics:  This option  would  preserve  the  advantages  of  option  3 while 

increasing flexibility and reducing time pressure by creating two new framework regulations stepwise. 

The preferred choice is option 4, as it offers the best chance to achieve the objectives. 

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Who supports which option?  
Following  extensive consultations,  a  large  majority  of  EU  agricultural statistics  stakeholders  supports  option  4. 
Ideally, most stakeholders would support option 3, but this is not seen as feasible to be achieved until 2020. A 
small minority of stakeholders prefers option 2 due to its lower initial costs. 

C. Impacts of the preferred option 

What are the benefits of the preferred option (if any, otherwise main ones)?  

Statistical  legislation  is  primarily  administrative  legislation  affecting  data  users  (mainly  policy  DGs),  data 
producers (NSIs), and data respondents (farmers), so its direct economic, social and environmental effects are 
limited. As to other relevant impacts: 

Option 

Objectives  Cost/ 

EU goals  Risks 

Option 1  Very neg. 
Option 2  Negative 
Option 3  Positive 
Option 4  Positive 

Efficiency 
Negative 
Negative 
Positive 
Positive 

Indirect 
impacts 

Stakeholders 

Total 

Very neg.  Very neg.  Very neg.  Negative 
Negative  Negative 
Negative  Neutral 
Positive 
Very pos.  Negative  Positive 
Positive 
Positive 
Very pos.  Positive 

Very neg. 
Negative 
Positive 
Positive 

What are the costs of the preferred option (if any, otherwise main ones)? 

The main direct costs for stakeholders relate to adapting to new statistical and technical systems. In the mid to 
long term, these actions are expected to lead to a slightly lower burden and to cost savings by surveying almost 
a fifth fewer holdings (representing about 56 million € savings out of total estimated costs of 320 million € for the 
agricultural census year 2010, with short-term adaptation costs estimated at around 26 million €). The costs of 
statistics  must  also  be  weighed  against  the  cost  of  not  having  statistics,  or  only  having  low-quality  statistics. 
Options 3 and 4 are thus cheaper than option 2 which continues the status quo. Option 1 is also likely cheaper 
than option 2, but regresses on the status quo. 

How will businesses, SMEs and micro-enterprises be affected?  

A majority of agricultural holdings in the EU are very small. Data on these holdings is necessary for agricultural 
policy  design,  implementation  and  monitoring,  and  rural  development.  Therefore,  these  holdings  cannot  be 
exempt  from  the  surveys.  But  the  initiative  aims  to  reduce  this  burden  with  appropriate  thresholds,  targeted 
samples  etc.,  and  technological  developments  and  new  data  sources  will  be  used  according  to  the  principle 
"collect once, use many times". 

Will there be significant impacts on national budgets and administrations?  

An EU financial contribution to national agricultural statistics data collections is expected to continue comparably 
to the present, and national expenditures should also reach a similar level as today. When fully realised, burden 
and  cost  reduction  actions  as  well  as  the  expected  decline  in  the  number  of  agricultural  holdings  (based  on 
observed trends) could lead to reduced costs. In general, statistics are a comparatively cheap public service that 
pays for itself through many important and versatile uses. 

Will there be other significant impacts?  

Agricultural  statistics  can  have  significant  indirect  impacts  on  areas  such  as  food  security,  climate  change, 
tourism and EU foreign policy by enabling better evidence-based policy design, implementation and monitoring 
based on high-quality data comparable across countries. But these impacts are hard to foresee and to measure. 
The direct impacts of statistical legislation are low. 

D. Follow up 

When will the policy be reviewed?  

Annual compliance assessments, continuous exchanges with stakeholders and triennial monitoring reports based 
on several key performance indicators will serve to review the policy. The second triennial monitoring report will 
be replaced by a retrospective evaluation. 

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