CELEX: 51989PC0003
Language: en
Date: 1989-03-03
Title: DRAFT COUNCIL REGULATION ( EEC/EURATOM ) ON THE TRANSMISSION OF DATA SUBJECT TO STATISTICAL CONFIDENTIALITY TO THE STATISTICAL OFFICE OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES

No C 86/12                              Official Journal of the European Communities                                     7. 4. 89
              Draft Council Regulation (EEC/Euratom) on the transmission of data subject to statistical
                           confidentiality to the Statistical Office of the European Communities
                                                        COM(89) 3 final
                                       (Submitted by the Commission on 15 March 1989)
                                                          (89/C 86/06)
THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES,                            Whereas, in accordance with Article 214 of the Treaty
                                                                    establishing the European Economic Community and
                                                                    Article 194 (1) of the Treaty establishing the European
Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European               Atomic Energy Community, the officials and other
Economic Community, and in particular Article 213                   servants of the Community are required, even after their
thereof,                                                            duties have ceased, not to disclose information of the
                                                                    kind covered by the obligation of professional secrecy;
Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European
                                                                    Whereas Article 17 of the Staff Regulations of officials
Atomic Energy Community, and in particular Article 187
                                                                    of the European Communities requires them to respect
thereof,
                                                                    the confidentiality of all facts and information coming to
                                                                    their knowledge in the course of or in connection with
Having regard to the draft Regulation submitted by the              the performance of their duties, and they remain bound
Commission,                                                         by this obligation after leaving the service;
                                                                    Whereas any infringement of the rules binding officials
Having regard       to  the   opinion     of  the   European        and other servants working for the SOEC, whether
Parliament,                                                         committed wilfully or through negligence, renders them
                                                                    liable to disciplinary sanctions and, if appropriate, legal
                                                                    penalties for violation of professional secrecy, pursuant
Whereas to enable it to carry out the duties entrusted to           to the combined provisions of Articles 12 and 18 of the
it by the Treaties, and especially in the light of the              Protocol on the privileges and immunities of the
internal market as provided for in Article 8a of the                European Communities;
Treaty establishing the European Economic Community,
the Commission must have full and reliable information;             Whereas, in accordance with Article 215 of the Treaty
whereas, with a view to efficient management, the Stat-             establishing the European Economic Community and
istical Office of the European Communities must be able             Article 188 of the Treaty establishing the European
to obtain all the national statistical information necessary        Atomic Energy Community, the Community shall make
in order to prepare Community statistics and carry out              good any damage caused by its institutions or by its
the necessary analyses;                                             servants in the performance of their duties;
                                                                    Whereas this Regulation applies only to the transmission
Whereas Article 5 of the Treaty establishing the                    to the Statistical Office of the European Communities of
European Economic Community and Article 192 of the                  statistical data which, in the national statistical institutes'
Euratom Treaty require the Member States to facilitate              field of competence, are covered by statistical confiden-
the achievement of the Community's tasks; whereas this              tiality, and whereas it does not affect special national or
obligation extends to providing all the requisite infor-            Community provisions relating to the transmission of
mation; whereas Member States have hitherto opposed                 other types of information to the Commission;
the transmission of confidential statistical data to the
Statistical Office of the European Communities,                     Whereas this Regulation is without prejudice to the
invoking national legislation on statistical confidentiality;       provisions of Article 223 of the Treaty establishing the
whereas this results in a considerable loss of information          European Economic Community, under which no
at Community level and makes it difficult to prepare                Member State is required to supply information, the
statistics and carry out analyses on the Community;                 disclosure of which it considers contrary to the essential
                                                                    interests os its security;
Whereas the Member States will have no further cause to             Whereas, in accordance with Article 47 of the Treaty
invoke national legislation on statistical confidentiality          establishing the European Coal and Steel Community,
once it has been established that the Statistical Office of         the Commission has adopted in particular Decision
the European Communities offers the same data                        1566/86/ECSC (') and whereas such decisions are not
confidentiality guarantees as the national statistical              affected by this Regulation, in compliance with Article
institutes; whereas these guarantees are already to some            232 of the Treaty establishing the European Economic
extent enshrined in the Community Treaties and in the               Community;
 Staff Regulations applicable to officials of the European
 Communities and can be backed up by appropriate
 measures under this Regulation;                                     (') OJ No L 141, 28. 5. 1986, p. 1.
 ---pagebreak--- 7. 4. 89                                  Official Journal of the European Communities                              No C 86/13
Whereas the establishment under this Regulation of an                    economic analyses; may not be used for adminis-
Advisory Committee on Statistical Confidentiality                        trative, legal or tax purposes or for verification
accords with Council Decision 87/373/EEC of 13 July                      against the units surveyed.
1987 laying down the procedures for the exercise of the
implementing powers conferred on the Commission (');                  5. Statistical unit: basic unit covered by statistical data
                                                                         transmitted to the SOEC.
Whereas implementation of the provisions contained in
this Regulation, and in particular those designed to                  6. Direct identification: immediate identification of a
ensure the protection of confidential statistical data                   statistical unit from its name or address.
transmitted to the Statistical Office of the European
Communities, will require technical, human and financial              7. Indirect identification: possibility of working out the
resources,                                                               identity of one or more statistical units from stat-
                                                                         istical data, even when aggregated.
HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:                                          8. Officials of the SOEC: officials of the Communities,
                                                                         within the meaning of Article 1 of the Staff Regu-
                                                                         lations for officials of the European Communities,
                            Article 1                                    working for the SOEC.
1.      The purpose of this Regulation is:
                                                                      9. Other servants of the SOEC: servants of the
                                                                         Communities, within the meaning of Articles 2 and 5
— to authorize national bodies to transmit confidential                  of the Regulations governing other servants of the
     statistical data to the Statistical Office of the                   European Communities, working for the SOEC.
     European Communities (hereinafter SOEC);
                                                                     10. Dissemination: supply of data in any form whatever;
— to provide a guarantee that the Commission will take                   publication, access to data bases, microfiches,
     all the necessary measures to ensure the confiden-                  telephone communications, etc.
     tiality of data thus transmitted.
                                                                                                Article 3
2.      This Regulation shall apply to statistical confiden-         1.    The national authorities shall be authorized to
tiality only. It does not offset special Community or               transmit confidential statistical data to the SOEC.
national provisions safeguarding confidentiality other
than statistical confidentiality.
                                                                    2.     National rules on statistical secrecy shall not apply
                                                                    to the transmission of statistical data to the SOEC where
                             Article 2                              there is a Community legal act relating to Community
                                                                    statistics and providing for such transmission.
For the purposes of the Regulation the terms given
below are defined as follows:
                                                                     3.    Confidential data shall be transmitted to the SOEC
                                                                    in a form precluding direct identification of the units
   1. Confidential     statistical    data:    data    declared     surveyed, unless a Community legal act decides
      confidential by the Member States in line with                otherwise.
      national legislation or practices governing statistical
      confidentiality.
                                                                    4.     National authorities shall not be obliged to forward
                                                                    information on the private lives of natural persons to the
  2. National authorities: national statistical institutes and      SOEC if this could enable these persons to be identified
      other public bodies responsible for collection of stat-       either directly or indirectly.
      istics for the Communities.
  3. Information on the private lives of natural persons:                                       Article 4
      information on the private and family lives of natural         1.    The Commission shall take all the necessary regu-
      persons as defined by national legislation or practices       latory, administrative, technical and organizational
      in the various Member States.                                 measures to ensure the confidentiality of data trans-
                                                                    mitted by the Member States in accordance with Article
  4. Use for statistical purposes: use exclusively for the          3.
      compilation of statistical tables or for statistical
                                                                    2.     The protection measures referred to in Article 5
(') OJ No L 197, 18. 7. 1987, p. 33.                                shall apply:
 ---pagebreak--- No C 86/14                                Official Journal of the European Communities                                   7. 4. 89
(a) to all confidential statistical data, the transmission to                                  Article 7
     the SOEC of which is covered by a Community legal
     act;                                                            1.    An Advisory Committee on Statistical Confiden-
                                                                    tiality shall be set up, composed of representatives of the
                                                                     Member States and chaired by a representative of the
(b) to all confidential statistical data transmitted volun-
                                                                     Commission (the Director-General of the SOEC or
     tarily by Member States to the SOEC.
                                                                     another person designated by him).
3.     The Commission shall establish the procedures for            2.     The Chairman shall submit to the Committee a
transmitting confidential statistical data to the SOEC              draft of the measures to be taken. The Committee shall
after consultation with the Advisory Committee on Stat-             deliver its opinion on the draft within a time limit which
istical Confidentiality provided for in Article 7.                  the Chairman may lay down according to the urgency of
                                                                    the matter, if necessary by taking a vote.
                          Article 5                                  3.    The opinion of the Committee shall be recorded in
                                                                    the minutes. Each Member State shall have the right to
1.     The       Commission         shall      instruct     the
                                                                     ask to have its position recorded in the minutes.
Director-General of the SOEC to ensure the confiden-
tiality of data transmitted to the SOEC by national auth-            4.    The Commission shall take the utmost account of
orities, and shall establish the procedures for this after           the opinion delivered by the Committee. It shall inform
consultation with the Committee on Statistical Confiden-             the Committee of the manner in which its opinion has
tiality provided for by Article 7.                                   been taken into account.
2.     Confidential statistical data transmitted to the                                        Article 8
SOEC shall only be accessible to officials of the SOEC
                                                                     1.    The Committee may be consulted by the
and may only be used for exclusively statistical purposes.
                                                                     Commission on all questions concerning this Regulation.
3.     However, the Commission may grant access to                   2.    The Committee shall be consulted by the
confidential statistical data to other servants of the               Commission prior to adopting the measures provided for
SOEC and other natural persons working on the                        in Article 4 (3) and in Article 5 (1) and (3).
premises of the SOEC under contract, in special cases
and exclusively for statistical purposes. The procedures             3.    The Committee may, at the request of the
for such access shall be laid down by the Commission                 Chairman or one of its members, examine the
after consulting the Committee on Statistical Confiden-              procedures     implemented       to    guarantee   statistical
tiality provided for by Article 7.                                   confidentiality where confidential statistics have been
                                                                     transmitted to the SOEC.
4.     Confidential statistical data in the SOEC's                   4.    The Committee        shall   lay  down   its rules    of
possession may not be disseminated unless it can be                  procedure.
guaranteed that the statistical units concerned cannot be
identified either directly or indirectly.                                                      Article 9
                                                                     The financial resources to be allocated in the general
5.     Officials or other servants of and other natural              budget of the European Communities, estimated as
persons working for the SOEC under contract may not                  necessary for the Commission to implement this Regu-
use these data for purposes other than those laid down in            lation, are:
this Regulation. This prohibition shall also apply
following transfer, termination of service or retirement.            — ECU 1 million for the year 1990
                                                                     — ECU 500 000 for each year 1991, 1992 and 1993.
                           Article 6
                                                                                               Article 10
Member States shall, by 1 January 1991, take appro-
priate measures to deal with any violations of the obli-             This Regulation shall enter into force on the third day
gation to maintain secrecy on confidential statistical data          following that of its publication in the Official Journal of
transmitted in accordance with Article 3.                             the European Communities.
                                                                     However, Article 3 shall apply from 1 January 1991.
 Member States shall inform the Commission without
delay of the measures taken, and the Commission shall                This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and
pass on this information to the other Member States.                 directly applicable in all Member States.