LeX-Ray

The Treaty requires the Commission to submit reports to the Council in order to enable the Council to monitor economic developments in each of the Member States and in the Community as well as the consistency of economic policies with certain broad guidelines.

According to the Treaty, the Commission must submit proposals to the Council for implementing the common commercial policy and the Council must authorise the Commission to open the necessary negotiations.

The implementation and the review of trade agreements, including the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) ( 3 ) and the Agreement on Trade-Related aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) ( 4 ) , as well as the current and future negotiations on further agreements, call for the relevant statistical information to be made available.

Council Regulation 1996/2223 of 25 June 1996 on the European System of national and regional accounts in the Community ( 5 ) (ESA 95) contains the reference framework of common standards, definitions, classifications, and accounting rules for drawing up the accounts of the Member States for the statistical requirements of the Community, in order to obtain comparable results between Member States.

The Action Plan on EMU Statistical Requirements presented to the Council in September 2000 and the 3rd, 4th and 5th Progress Reports, also supported by the Council, provide for quarterly European accounts by the institutional sector within 90 days. The timely provision of quarterly balance-of-payments figures is a prerequisite for the compilation of these quarterly European accounts.

Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 58/97 of 20 December 1996 on Structural Business Statistics ( 6 ) , established a common framework for the collection, compilation, transmission and evaluation of Community statistics on the structure, activity, competitiveness and performance of businesses in the Community and sets out the characteristics which should be collected in this area.

CBPIER of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 December 2001 on cross-border payments in euro ( 7 ) , had a direct impact on the collection of statistics; an increase in the threshold provided for in that Regulation would have a significant impact on the reporting burden of undertakings and on the quality of balance of payments statistics of Member States, especially in the Member States that have collection systems based on settlements.

Collectively, the Balance of Payments Manual of the International Monetary Fund, the Guideline of the European Central Bank (ECB) of 2 May 2003 on the statistical reporting requirements of the European Central Bank in the field of balance of payments and international investment position statistics, and the international reserves template ( 8 ) , the Manual on statistics of international trade in services of the United Nations, and the OECD Benchmark Definition of Foreign Direct Investment, define the general rules for compiling statistics on balance of payments, international trade in services, and foreign direct investment.

In the field of balance of payments statistics, the ECB and the Commission coordinate work on compilation issues as appropriate. This Regulation defines in particular the statistical information that the Commission needs from the Member States in order to produce Community statistics on balance of payments, international trade in services and foreign direct investment. For the purposes of producing and disseminating those Community statistics, the Commission and the Member States consult with each other on matters concerning the quality of the data supplied and its dissemination.

Council Regulation (Euratom, EEC) No 1588/90 of 11 June 1990 on the transmission of data subject to statistical confidentiality to the Statistical Office of the European Communities ( 9 ) , provides that national rules on statistical confidentiality may not be invoked to prevent the transmission of confidential statistical data to the Community authority (Eurostat) where an act of Community law governing a Community statistic provides for the transmission of such data.

Council CSIBECBR of 23 November 1998 concerning the collection of statistical information by the European Central Bank ( 10 ) , lays down a confidentiality regime that applies to confidential statistical information transmitted to the ECB.

The production of specific Community statistics is governed by the rules set out in Council CSR of 17 February 1997 on Community statistics ( 11 ) .

There is a clear need to produce Community statistics on balance of payments, international trade in services and foreign direct investment which follow common statistical quality standards.

Since the objective of this Regulation, namely the creation of common statistical quality standards for the production of comparable statistics on balance of payments, international trade in services and foreign direct investment, cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States and can therefore be better achieved at Community level, the Community may adopt measures, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity as set out in Article 5 of the Treaty. In accordance with the principle of proportionality, as set out in that Article, this Regulation does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve that objective.

In order to guarantee the fulfilment of the obligations laid down in this Regulation, the national institutions responsible for the collection of data within the Member States may need to gain access to administrative data sources such as business registers held by other public institutions and to other databases containing information on cross-border transactions and positions, wherever such data are necessary for the production of Community statistics.

The measures necessary for the implementation of this Regulation should be adopted in accordance with Council Decision 1999/468/EC of 28 June 1999 laying down the procedures for the exercise of implementing powers conferred on the Commission ( 12 ) ,