Steel industry: annual Community statistics on steel for 2003-2009

The committee adopted the report by its chairman, Carlos WESTENDORP Y CABEZA (PES, E) broadly approving the proposal under the 1st reading of the codecision procedure, subject to a number of technical and drafting amendments. It also introduced an explicit maximum period for the transmission of data (6 months), as was required under the previous system but which was missing from the present proposal. It nevertheless made provision for Member States which may have difficulties in the initial stages of implementation of the regulation, by allowing for the first transmission period to be extended to 12 months in such cases, using the commitology procedure.�