Common framework for business registers for statistical purposes

PURPOSE : to improve and update the existing Business Registers Regulation (BR) in order to take account of new requirements which have progressively emerged as a result of globalization of the economy, the integration of activities of the different sectors and the Single Market  which requires improved statistical comparability.

PROPOSED ACT : Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council.

CONTENT : given the new data requirements, two major changes are introduced in the proposed draft Regulation:

- all the enterprises carrying out economic activities contributing to gross domestic product, their local units and the corresponding legal units should be registered on a mandatory basis (some sectors of activity are optional in the current version of the Regulation);

- financial links and enterprise groups will have to be covered and data on multinational groups and their constituent units will have to be exchanged between countries and Eurostat.

The draft Regulation is the product of extensive consultations with the Member States and has been discussed at length by the various interested parties, several times in the Business Registers–Statistical Units Working Group and in the meetings of Directors of Business Statistics and of the Statistical Programme Committee. The views of major users in the Member States, EFTA, Candidate Countries and in the Commission and of other stakeholders have been considered. The present proposal is a balanced position between the level of detail needed by the main users and the workload in the National Statistical Institutes.