Social protection: set up the European System of integrated Social Protection Statistics ESSPROS

 The committee adopted the report by its chairman, Jan ANDERSSON (PES, SE), broadly approving the proposed regulation on the European system of integrated social protection statistics (ESSPROS). It adopted a number of mainly technical amendments - under the 1st reading of the codecision procedure - specifying inter alia that the first year for which data are collected shall be the calendar year following the year of publication of the regulation in the EU Official Journal. The committee also added a new definition: 'grouping of schemes', meaning "criteria to classify each social protection scheme, mainly, decision-making, legal enforcement, the establishment of entitlements, and the scope and level of protection". Each scheme would be classified into a single category per criterion.

Regarding the scope of the system, the report specified that the additional modules should cover supplementary statistical information on "pension beneficiaries and net social protection benefits", rather than the more vaguely worded "particular aspects of social protection". Lastly, MEPs wanted the arrangements for implementing the regulation to take into account the results of a cost-benefit analysis.