REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL on the implementation of Regulation (EC) No 295/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning structural business statistics
Date: 2021-02-18
Institutions: European Commission, Eurostat
Subjects: EU statistics, branch of activity, confidentiality, data collection, economic statistics, statistical method

EN 

  EN 

   EUROPEAN COMMISSION  Brussels, 18.2.2021  COM(2021) 67 final  REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL on the implementation of Regulation (EC) No 295/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning structural business statistics       
 
 
Table of Contents 

1. 

1.1. 

1.2. 

1.3. 

2. 

2.1. 

2.2. 

3. 

3.1. 

3.2. 

4. 

5. 

6. 

8. 

8.1. 

8.2. 

INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................ 3 

Regulation on structural business statistics .................................................................. 3 

Content of the main data sets ....................................................................................... 3 

Accessibility and publication of SBS ........................................................................... 4 

EFFECTIVENESS OF THE REGULATION AND RELEVANCE OF DATASETS 5 

Availability and completeness of data ......................................................................... 5 

Confidentiality rules and their implementation ............................................................ 6 

COHERENCE AND COMPARABILITY .................................................................. 7 

Coherence ..................................................................................................................... 7 

Comparability ............................................................................................................... 7 

DEADLINES FOR SUPPLYING DATA ................................................................... 8 

ACCESSIBILITY AND CLARITY ............................................................................ 8 

COMPLIANCE WITH THE SBS REGULATION ..................................................... 8 

CHANGES INTRODUCED AND ENVISAGED IN SBS ......................................... 9 

The application of enterprise statistical unit in SBS  ................................................... 9 

Integration of SBS production with the other domains in Business Statistics ........... 10 

1 

 
 
 
1. 

INTRODUCTION 

Regulation on structural business statistics 

1.1. 
Under  Article  13(1)  of  Regulation  (EC)  No  295/2008  on  structural  business  statistics1  (‘the 

SBS Regulation’), ‘the Commission shall, by 29 April 2011 and every three years thereafter, 

submit  a  report  to  the  European  Parliament  and  the  Council  on  the  statistics  compiled 

pursuant to this Regulation and in particular on their quality and the burden on business’. This 

report follows on from the April 2017 report2. 

This report gives an overview of progress in implementing the SBS Regulation for structural 

business statistics on: 

  services 

 

 

industry 

trade 

  construction 

  business services and 

  business demography. 

It provides information on the measures the Commission has taken to ensure that high quality 

European  structural  business  statistics  are  made  available  and  provides  information  on  the 

implementation of the SBS Regulation by Member States. It also provides information on the 

actions Eurostat has launched to make structural business statistics more relevant and reduce 

the burden on businesses. It covers SBS data transmitted by Member States for the reference 

year 2016 and therefore also considers the United Kingdom. 

1.2. 

Content of the main data sets 

Structural  business  statistics  (SBSs)  give  a  comprehensive  picture  of  the  structure, 

development and characteristics of European business as a whole and of its different sectors 

and  make  an  important  contribution  to  several  other  areas  such  as  national  accounts, 

short-term statistics and business registers. 

In  general,  the  data  cover  all  sectors  apart  from  agriculture  and  personal  services.  Data  are 

collected on the following variables: 

1 Regulation (EC) No 295/2008 of the European Parliament and of the  Council of 11 March 2008 concerning 

structural business statistics (recast) (OJ L 97, 9.4.2008, p. 13). 

2  COM(2014) 243 final.  

2 

 
 
               
 
                                                           
  output-related variables (e.g. turnover and value added); 

 

input-related  variables  relating  to  labour  input  (e.g.  employment  and  hours  worked), 
goods  and  services  input  (e.g.  total  purchases)  and  capital  input  (e.g.  investments  in 
tangible goods); and 

  business  demography variables (e.g. population of active businesses, number of new 

businesses created and number of businesses closed down). 

In  addition,  several  other  important  indicators  are  derived  from  the  above,  in  the  form  of 

ratios of certain monetary variables or per capita values. 

All  Member  States  send  several  data  sets,  as  required  by  Commission  Regulation  (EC) 
No 251/20093. The main datasets are: 

  annual  enterprise  statistics  (all  characteristics  are  transmitted  by  country  at  NACE 

Revision 24 four-digit level (classes)); 

  annual  enterprise  statistics  by  size  class  (all  characteristics  are  by  country  at  NACE 
Revision 2 three-digit level (groups), with size class determined by number of persons 
employed); 

  annual regional statistics (four characteristics are by NUTS 2 region at NACE Revision 

2 two-digit level (divisions)); and 

  annual  demographic  statistics  by  legal  form  or  by  employee  size  class  (the 

characteristics are by country, at NACE Revision 2 four-digit level (classes)). 

The  majority  of  the  data  is  collected  by  national  statistical  institutes  (NSIs)  by  means  of 

statistical  surveys, business  registers or from  various  administrative sources. Member States 

apply  various  statistical  methods,  according  to  the  data  source,  such  as  grossing  up, 

model-based  estimation  or  different  forms  of  imputation,  to  ensure  the  quality  of  SBS 

produced. 

All data received from Member States undergo quality checks before being published on the 

Eurostat website.  

3  Commission Regulation (EC) No 251/2009 of 11 March 2009 implementing and amending Regulation (EC) 
No 295/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards the series of data to be produced for 
structural business statistics and the adaptations necessary after the revision of the statistical classification of 
products by activity (CPA), OJ L 86, 31.3.2009, p. 170. 

4          Commission  Regulation  (EC)  No  1893/2006  of  the  European  Parliament  and  of  the  Council  of  20 
December 2006  establishing  the  statistical  classification  of  economic  activities  NACE  Revision  2  and 
amending  
Council Regulation (EEC) No 3037/90 as well as certain EC Regulations on specific statistical domains,  
(OJ L 393, 30.12.2006, p.1). 

3 

 
 
                                                           
1.3. 

Accessibility and publication of SBS 

All  data  provided  by  Member  States  for  the  reference  year  2016,  together  with  the  EU 

aggregates,  have  been  freely  available  on  the  Eurostat  website  since  December  2018.  SBS 

data for the reference year 2017 have been available since December 2019. The data can be 
accessed in the database under ‘Structural business statistics’ (SBS) 5. The SBS section of the 

website can be found on Eurostat's homepage under the heading ‘Industry, trade and services’ 
or via the search function6. 

SBS  have  also  been  used  in  many  other  publications  for  example  in  the  Cohesion  Reports7 
and in the Eurostat regional yearbook8. 

2. 

EFFECTIVENESS  OF  REGULATION  (EC)  NO  251/2009  AND  RELEVANCE 

OF DATASETS 

2.1. 

Availability and completeness of data 

Tables 1 and 2 below show that, on the whole, data sent by Member States are complete for 

all SBS modules. Countries are considered ‘large’, ‘medium’ or ‘small’ in terms of their share 
of the EU total of value added in the business economy9.  

Taking into consideration all the data that should be submitted to Eurostat in accordance with 

Regulation (EC) No 295/2008, 98.5% of SBS data (availability rate) for services, industry, the 

distributive  trade,  construction  and  business  services  were  produced  for  the  reference  year 

2016 while the availability rate was 99.1% for business demography. The rates represent an 

improvement  compared  to  the  situation  described  in  the  previous  report  to  the  European 

Parliament and the Council. The increases in the number of cells transmitted can be explained 

5  http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/structural-business-statistics/data/database(Available only in English, French 

and German). 

6  http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat (Available only in English, French and German). 
7  https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docoffic/official/reports/cohesion7/7cr.pdf 
8  https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/3217494/11348978/KS-HA-20-001-EN-N.pdf/f1ac43ea-cb38-3ffb-

9 

ce1f-f0255876b670 and online at 
 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Eurostat_regional_yearbook 
In  order  to  minimise  the  burden  on  businesses  and  the  costs  to  the  national  statistical  authorities,  Member 
States may mark data for use as a ‘contribution to European totals only’ (CETO). Eurostat does not publish 
such data and they are not marked as ‘CETO’ when Member States publish them nationally. The use of the  
CETO flag depends on the Member State’s share of total added value in the business economy, as follows: 
Large countries: DE, FR, IT, UK; 
Medium countries: BE, DK, ES, GR, IE, NL, AT, PL, PT, FI, SE, NO; and 
Small countries: BG, CZ, EE, HR, CY, LV, LT, LU, HU, MT, RO, SI, SK. 

4 

 
 
                                                           
 
by  the  fact  that  countries  are  making  constant  efforts  to  improve  the  delivery  of  all  the 

required data.  

The  availability  rates  were  calculated  based  on  the  first  received  version  of  data.  For  some 

countries they do not represent the final  figures, as some of the missing data were sent in  a 

later  version.  In  addition  to  delays,  missing  data  for  some  countries  could  also  be  due  to 

reasons such as lack of data sources to cater for required data for some variables.  

Nevertheless,  Tables  1  and  2  also  show  that  the  availability  of  SBS  data  on  the  Eurostat 

website  was  affected  by  the  fact  that  some  data,  especially  for  small  countries,  are 

confidential.  

Table 1:  Availability  and  confidentiality  of  final  data  on  services,  industry,  trade, 

construction and business services, NACE Revision 2, 2016 

Countries 

Large countries 
Medium countries 
Small countries 
ALL 

Total cells transmitted as a 
percentage of the SBS Regulation 
requirements (availability rate) 

Confidential cells not 
published as a percentage of 
total cells sent (availability 
rate) 

96.7 
98.2 
99.5 
98.5 

10.1 
16.0 
20.4 
16.8 

Table 2:  Availability  and  confidentiality  of 

final  data  on  business  demography,  

NACE Revision 2, 2016 

Countries 

Large countries 
Medium countries 
Small countries  
ALL 

Total  cells  sent  as  a  percentage  of 
the  SBS  Regulation  requirements 
(availability rate) 

Confidential  cells  not  published 
as  a  percentage  of  cells  sent 
(availability rate) 

100.0 
97.9 
100.0 
99.1 

4,2 
14.1 
13.6 
12.5 

2.2. 

Confidentiality rules and their implementation 

As structural business statistics are broken down into a relatively detailed level of activities, 

many  cells  at  country  level  have  to  be  protected  in  order  not  to  disclose  confidential 

information.  Member  States  have  implemented  various  confidentiality  rules  to  avoid  the 

release of data referring to a single enterprise. Member States typically protect data covering a 

small number of enterprises and figures ‘dominated’ by   one or two responding enterprises. 

5 

 
 
 
 
The  confidentiality  rules  at  national  level  are  not  yet  fully  harmonised.  Tables  1  and  2 

illustrate  the  extent  to  which  confidentiality  rules  affect  data  availability  at  the  level  of 

Member States. The percentages of data classified as confidential vary from 4.2 % to 14.1 %, 

with  in  general  higher  rates  recorded  by  the  medium  and  small  countries  due  to  the  rules 

mentioned above.   

In  addition  to  the  confidentiality  rules  applied  at  national  level,  some  data  at  EU  aggregate 

level were not disclosed in order to safeguard countries’ confidential data. Table 3 shows that 

9.7% of EU aggregates for SBS were affected for reference year 2016 and 12.5% for business 

demography. 

Table 3:  Confidentiality  of  the  main  variables  included  in  annual  enterprise  statistics  for 

which EU aggregates were published for all levels of NACE Revision 2, 2016 

Area of SBS 

Total number 
of data cells 

Number of 
confidential data 
cells 

Confidential 
data (%) 

Services 
Industry 
Trade 
Construction 
Total 
trade and construction) 

(services, 

industry, 

Business demography 

5 353 
8 218 
2 104 
718 

16 393 

26 111 

620 
812 
104 
49 

1 585 

3 268 

11.6 
9.9 
4.9 
6.8 

9.7 

12.5 

3. 

COHERENCE AND COMPARABILITY 

Data  reconciliation  and  integration  support  the  harmonisation  of  economic  and  related 

statistics, facilitate the aggregation and comparison among disparate data sets and promote the 

compilation  of coherent  macroeconomic statistics such as national  accounts.  In this  context, 

Member States are asked to report to what extent the various data collections are comparable 

and coherent and can be related to each other.  

3.1. 

Coherence 

Coherence refers to the extent to which data from different sources can be combined. Data on 

structural business statistics can be found in the following related domains: business register, 

industry production of goods, national accounts, and short term statistics.  

In these data collections, inconsistencies in relation to SBS data have been examined. While 

some  variables  are  unique  for  the  SBS  domain,  some  others  can  be  comparable  with  the 

6 

 
 
 
results  from  these  statistical  sources.  Minor  differences  can  be  found  due  to  a  number  of 

reasons such as differences in survey strategy, applied threshold methodology and size of the 

sample; but the quality of SBS is very good, which makes it possible to use it in combination 

with other data sources. The consistency across countries and for key measures or variables 

are confirmed through the use of common definitions, standards and classifications.  

The  coherence  between  SBS  and  other  domains  in  business  statistics  will  continue  to  be 

improved  with  the  implementation  of  the  European  business  statistics  framework.  An 

integrated  statistical  production  system  for  business  statistics  will  also  contribute  to  the 

overall coherence of economic statistics.  

3.2. 

Comparability 

SBS data is comparable over time and across countries. A change in the NACE classification 

was  brought  about  for  reference  year  2008  with  the  introduction  of  NACE  Revision  2.  

Therefore, data for SBS is comparable for all reference years as from 2008.   

Eurostat  monitors  regularly  the  application  of  concepts,  definitions  and  the  reporting 

requirements in Regulation (EC) No 295/2008 to ensure that the data are comparable across 

countries.  The  harmonisation  and  comparability  of  SBS  data  in  the  European  statistical 

system are also coordinated through the SBS and BD Working Groups and BSDG meetings. 

These  groups discussed  and provided many  guidelines on a broad range  of issues regarding 

the implementation of the SBS Regulation to ensure that the data transmitted by the Member 

States are of good quality and comparable.   

4. 

DEADLINES FOR SUPPLYING DATA 

The deadlines by which Member States must supply data for the reference year, as laid down 

in the SBS Regulation, are as follows:  

  10 months  after the  year-end for preliminary  statistics on services, industry, trade and 

construction; and 

  18 months after the year-end for final data for all sectors. 

For reference years 2016 and 2017, most of the countries delivered their data on time for all 

SBS areas.  

7 

 
 
 
5. 

ACCESSIBILITY AND CLARITY 

All SBSs are available free of charge on the Eurostat website in the area ‘Industry, trade and 

services’,  together  with  detailed  information  on  all  methodological  aspects  that  may  be  of 

relevance to users10. National metadata are available in the annexes of Eurostat's metadata11.  

6. 

COMPLIANCE WITH THE SBS REGULATION   

Member States’ compliance with the SBS Regulation in 2016 is assessed on the basis of the 

completeness of the data provided, the number of versions received before publication of the 

final data, and whether the data are provided within the deadlines.  

The  countries  (EU-28,  Iceland,  Liechtenstein  and  Norway)  have  been  divided  into  four 

categories of compliance: 

  VG 

= 

Very good compliance. All required data (with minor exceptions) were 

delivered on time (scores of 90 % or above). 

  G  

= 

Good compliance. There were a few elements missing or minor delays 

in data delivery (scores between 70 and 89 %). 

  P  

= 

Data were partially available but major sections of required information 

were missing or deadlines were not met (scores between 10 and 69 %). 

  N  

= 

A large part of the data was missing or there were major delays in data 

delivery (scores of less than 10 %). 

In general, compliance levels in most  Member States are ‘good’ to ‘very good’. Twentyfive 

countries have a very good compliance level. A further 5 have a good compliance level and 1 

country  is  partially  compliant.  In  comparison  to  the  reference  year  2015,  12  countries  have 

improved their overall compliance score and 11 countries had the same compliance score. 

Eurostat regularly submits a compliance report to the SBS Working Group, with the objective 

of  identifying  aspects  of  the  quality  where  a  potential  Member  State  needs  to  progress  to 

achieve  a  maximum  compliance  with  the  SBS  Regulation  and  to  guarantee  the  coherence, 

relevance, timeliness, accessiblity and comparability of the data.  

In  addition,  Eurostat  has  developed  a  data  validation  tool  which  Member  States  can  use  to 

check for accuracy and confidentiality before sending the data to Eurostat. The vast majority 

of the Member States uses this validation tool. The tool has helped to reduce the number of 

versions and improved the quality of the data transmitted by the Member States. 

10   https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/structural-business-statistics/overview  
11   https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/metadata/en/sbs_esms.htm  

8 

 
 
 
                                                           
7. 

BURDEN ON BUSINESSES 

Member  States  have  continuously  improved  their  data  collection  processes  with  the  aim  of 

reducing the burden on enterprises. Already in 2016, 26 out of 31 countries were using sample 

surveys  combined  with  administrative  data  in  data  collection.  For  example,  all  larger 

enterprises - above an industry-specific employment threshold - were included in the survey 

in most countries, while smaller enterprises were selected as a part of a sample.  

In many Member States there is a strong and growing focus on  developing coherent and well-

founded strategies so that administrative data sources can be fully exploited in the statistical 

processes.  Statistical  authorities  are  often  involved  in  the  design  of  administrative  data  in 

order to make administrative data more suitable for statistical purposes. In quite a number of 

cases, countries have used estimates or supplemented survey data with administrative data to 

produce the relevant SBS indicators.   

8. 

CHANGES INTRODUCED AND ENVISAGED IMPROVEMENT OF SBS  

8.1. 

INTEGRATION  OF  SBS  PRODUCTION  WITH  THE  OTHER  DOMAINS  IN 

BUSINESS STATISTICS 

Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 developed a cross-cutting legal framework on European business 

statistics12  for  their  development,  production  and  dissemination  and  replaced  10    legal  acts 

that currently exist in the field of trade and business statistics, including  Regulation (EC) No 

295/2008, with effect from 1 January 2021.  

It covers statistical requirements such as the structure, economic activities and performance of 

European  businesses,  their  research,  development  and  innovation  activities  and  their  ICT-

usage, e-commerce presence and global value chains.  

The adoption of Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 in 2019  was an important step towards a more 

integrated system of European business statistics. The legislative work still continues with the 

preparation of the necessary technical  implementing and delegated acts . 

The first preliminary SBS data to transmit following the new data requirements will occur in 

October 2022.  For the SBS domain, Regulation  (EU) 2019/2152 will bring  about  important 

12 Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 November 2019 on 
     European  business  statistics, 
OJ L 327, 17.12.2019, p. 1). 

repealing  10 

legal  acts 

field  of  business  statistics 

the 

in 

( 

9 

 
 
                                                           
 
changes13  such  as  broader  measurement  of  the  economic  sectors,  better  coverage  of  the 

service  sector,  better  integrated  data  collection  and  data  processing  across  sectors  and 

domains, several simplifying measures for data requirements to reduce unnecessary statistical 

burden on respondents, and much better comparable, relevant, consistent and coherent data.  

8.2.  THE APPLICATION OF STATISTICAL UNIT ENTERPRISE IN SBS 

In  SBS,  the  statistical  unit  is  the  ‘enterprise’  as  defined  by  Regulation  (EC)  No  696/93. 

However, implementation still differed between countries for reference year 2016. 

An inaccurate identification of the statistical unit can cause a deviation from the objective of 

producing  comparable  and  relevant  statistical  figures.  In  the  context  of  ESS  coherence  and 

consistency,  statistical  information  is  not  comparable  in  a  statistical  domain  if  different 

statistical units are used in different EU countries. Aware of this limitation, all Member States 

have commited to put in place national action plans to implement the enterprise definition for 

SBS  by  reference  year  2018.  In  the  meantime,  Eurostat  sponsored  a  multi-year  project  that 

produced a set of recommendations on how to proceed with this task. 

13https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=European_business_statistics_manual_-

_data_requirements#cite_note-1 

10