Science and technology: production and development of Community statistics

In its common position, the Council incorporated substantively the amendments tabled by the European Parliament, which sought to: - state that data to be gathered and provided should be broken down by region, relying upon the NUTS classification; - shorten the interval by which the Commission reports to the European Parliament and to the Council on the implementation of this decision, both for the initial report (now four years after entry into force) and for the periodic reports (now every three years); - better focus on the purpose of the intensified cooperation with the OECD and other international organisations, now stated as 'with a view to ensuring comparability of data and avoiding duplication of efforts'. The Council did not incorporate the amendment on cooperation and consultation with the Helsinki Group. In one recital, however, the Council welcomed explicitly the work of the Helsinki Group, adding that gender specific data should be gathered to monitor progress in equal opportunity policy implementation. This recital maintained the importance of the Helsinki Group and underlined the intentions of continued cooperation with the group, which was also considered important by the Commission. Lastly, it should be noted that the management procedure has been changed to a regulatory procedure. �