REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL on exercising the power to adopt delegated acts conferred on the Commission pursuant to Regulation (EU) No 691/2011 on European environmental economic accounts
Date: 2025-11-19
Institutions: European Commission, Eurostat
Subjects: EU statistics, European Commission, data collection, delegated legislation, economic statistics, environmental economics, environmental protection, environmental statistics, national accounts, transfer of competence

EN 

  EN 

   EUROPEAN COMMISSION  Brussels, 19.11.2025  COM(2025) 697 final  REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL on exercising the power to adopt delegated acts conferred on the Commission pursuant to Regulation (EU) No 691/2011 on European environmental economic accounts  
 
 
(1) 

BACKGROUND 

Article 3(3) and 3(4) and Article 10 of Regulation (EU) No 691/2011 of the European 
Parliament and of the Council of 6 July 2011 on European environmental economic 
accounts1 confer on the Commission the power to adopt delegated acts. In accordance 
with Article 9(2) of that Regulation, the power to adopt delegated acts is conferred for 
a period of five years from 11 August 2011. That power is to be tacitly extended for 
periods of five years unless the European Parliament or the Council opposes such an 
extension. 

The Commission must draw up a report on how it has exercised the power conferred 
on  it  no  later  than  nine  months  before  the  end  of  each  five-year  period.  The 
Commission  submitted  its  first  report  in  November  20152  and  its  second  report  in 
December 20203. The power to adopt delegated acts was automatically extended for a 
period of five years after each of the two reports, as it was not revoked by either the 
European Parliament or the Council pursuant to Article 9(3). 

This  is  the  third  report  on  how  the  Commission  has  exercised  the  power  to  adopt 
delegated acts conferred on it by Regulation (EU) No 691/2011. It covers the period 
from 2020 to 2025. 

(2) 

COMMISSION’S EXERCISING OF DELEGATED POWERS PURSUANT TO REGULATION 
(EU) No 691/2011  

Since  the  last  report,  submitted  in  2020,  the  Commission  has  adopted  three 
Commission Delegated Regulations. 

•  Commission  Delegated  Regulation  (EU)  2022/125  amended  Annexes I  to  V  to 

Regulation (EU) No 691/20114 as set out below. 

o 

The list of air pollutants and reporting items in Annex I to Regulation (EU) 
No 691/2011  was  updated  to  bring  it  into  line  with:  (i)  the  list  of 
greenhouse  gases  reported  under  the  United  Nations  Framework 
Convention  on  Climate  Change;  (ii)  the  guidelines  for  emission 
inventories  under  the  Convention  on  Long-range  Transboundary  Air 

1 OJ L 192, 22.7.2011, p. 1, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2011/691/oj. 

2 Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the exercise of the power to adopt 
delegated  acts  conferred  on  the  Commission  pursuant  Regulation  (EU)  No 691/2011  on  European 
environmental economic accounts, COM(2015) 577 final of 23 November 2015. 

3  Report  from  the  Commission  to  the  European  Parliament  and  the  Council  on  exercising  the  power  to  adopt 
delegated  acts  conferred  on  the  Commission  pursuant  to  Regulation  (EU)  No 691/2011  on  European 
environmental economic accounts, COM(2020) 776 final of 2 December 2020. 

4 Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2022/125 of 19 November 2021 amending Annexes I to V to Regulation 
(EU) No 691/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European environmental economic 
accounts (OJ L 20, 31.1.2022, p. 40, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg_del/2022/125/oj). 

1 

 
 
 
Pollution;  and  (iii)  the  definitions  laid  down  by  the  National  Emissions 
Ceilings Directive5. 

To better serve climate policy, Annex II now requires Member States to 
provide a breakdown of government tax revenue from the EU Emissions 
Trading System and other CO2 taxes. 

Tables C and E in Annex III were deleted to reduce the burden on Member 
States. The information in those tables was no longer needed to produce 
EU aggregates, as Eurostat had developed a new method based on other 
readily available data. 

Annex  IV  on  environmental  protection  expenditure  accounts  now 
distinguishes between the following different types of economic agents: 
ancillary  activities  of  corporations,  corporations  as  secondary  and 
specialist producers, and households as consumers. 

The scope of Annex V on the environmental goods and services sector was 
extended from the marketed share of the economy to the total economy. 

The reporting deadlines for European environmental economic accounts 
were shortened to make the accounts more useful for policymaking. 

o 

o 

o 

o 

o 

•  Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/4726 introduced the requirement to 
use  the  statistical  classification  of  economic  activities  (NACE)  Rev.2.1  when 
transmitting environmental accounts and amended Regulation (EU) No 691/2011 
to update the data transmission requirements from NACE Rev.2 to NACE Rev.2.1 
(the most recent update) for the Annexes concerned. 

•  Commission  Delegated  Regulation  (EU)  2025/11317  included  climate  change 
mitigation investments in the European environmental  accounts and introduced 
the statistical classification of environmental purposes. 

Data  on  climate  change  mitigation, 
investments,  are 
indispensable to achieve the objective of climate neutrality in the EU by 2050. 
Characteristics  regarding  other  climate  change  mitigation  investments  were 

including  related 

5 Directive (EU) 2016/2284 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 December 2016 on the reduction 
of  national  emissions  of  certain  atmospheric  pollutants,  amending  Directive  2003/35/EC  and  repealing 
Directive 2001/81/EC (OJ L 344, 17.12.2016, p. 1, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/dir/2016/2284/oj). 

6 Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/472 of 2 September 2024 amending Regulation (EU) No 691/2011 
of  the  European  Parliament  and  of  the  Council,  as  regards  references  to  the  statistical  classification  of 
economic activities NACE established by Regulation (EC) No 1893/2006 of the European Parliament and 
of the Council (OJ L, 2025/472, 11.3.2025, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg_del/2025/472/oj). 

7 Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/1131 of 26 March 2025 amending Regulation (EU) No 691/2011 
of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards investments on climate change mitigation and 
introducing 
(OJ  L,  2025/1131,  4.6.2025, 
ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg_del/2025/1131/oj). 

environmental  purposes 

classification  of 

the 

2 

 
 
 
 
therefore  included  in  the  European  environmental  accounts.  The  data  cover  all 
economic sectors  and activities. Article 10 of Regulation  (EU)  No 691/2011 as 
amended by Regulation (EU) 2024/3024 specifically requires the Commission to 
adopt a delegated act. 

Pursuant to Article 3(3) of Regulation (EU) No 691/2011, the same Commission 
Delegated  Regulation  also  replaced  the  old  classification  of  environmental 
protection activities with the statistical classification of environmental purposes. 
This new classification is to be applied to Annexes IV, V and VIII. Article 3(3) 
empowers  the  Commission  to  adopt  delegated  acts  when  an  Annex  requires 
updating to take account of environmental, economic and technical developments. 

These regulations are all technical updates of variables, statistical classifications and 
reporting tables laid down by the Regulation. The updates were necessary to serve EU 
information  needs  for  the  European  Green  Deal  or  to  align  with  new  statistical 
standards, e.g. as regards classifications. 

During  the  preparatory  work  for  all  the  above  Commission  Delegated  Regulations, 
appropriate  consultations  were  carried  out,  including  at  expert  level.  Eurostat’s 
working  group  on  environmental  accounts  and  working  group  on  monetary 
environmental accounts and statistics were consulted in meetings in May 2021, 2022, 
2023 and 2024. The expert group of Directors of sectoral and environmental statistics 
and accounts was consulted in October 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024. Both the European 
Parliament and the Council were duly informed. 

The Commission may need to continue using the powers conferred on it by Article 3(3) 
and 3(4) and Article 10 in the near future to better provide for the data needs of current 
and future EU policies. 

(3) 

CONCLUSIONS 

The Commission  exercised its delegated powers correctly and invites the European 
Parliament and the Council to take note of this report. 

The Commission considers that it should continue to have the powers conferred on it 
by Regulation (EU) No 691/2011, as it may need to adopt delegated acts in the future 
to reflect progress in statistical methodologies and to adjust the priorities to meet new 
needs for environmental information. 

3