The European Parliament adopted by 433 votes to 116, with 23 abstentions, a legislative resolution on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on European statistics on population and housing, amending Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 and repealing Regulations (EC) No 763/2008 and (EU) No 1260/2013.

The European Parliament’s position adopted at first reading under the ordinary legislative procedure amends the proposal as follows:

The role of European statistics on population and housing

Parliament highlighted that European statistics on population and housing play a central role in policy-making and decision-making processes and, as such, are required for the design, implementation and evaluation of Union policies, in particular those addressing the demographic change, the green and digital transformations, the framework for the promotion of energy efficiency, economic, social and territorial cohesion, the implementation of the principles of the European Pillar of Social Rights and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations (UN) 2030 Agenda.

Hard-to-reach population groups

European statistics on population and housing should address the persistent lack of data on hard-to-reach population groups, such as people residing in institutions (e.g. military institutions, penal and correctional institutions, school and university dormitories, religious institutions, hospitals, residential care centres, including institutions for disabled people and orphans), people aged over 75, disabled people, homeless people, people with a migrant background and stateless people.

In order to bridge that data divide and to prevent social and economic inequalities arising from it, Member States should develop strategies and targeted solutions for collecting data about hard-to-reach population groups, in particular with regard to locating, contacting, persuading and interviewing such populations.

Members introduced a definition of ‘ hard-to-reach population groups ’, i.e. groups of individuals for whom there is a real or perceived barrier to full and representative inclusion in statistical data collection.

Statistical requirements

European statistics on population and housing should cover the following domains: (a) demography; (b) housing; (c) families; and (d) households.

Statistics in these domains should be organised into data sets following the topics and detailed topics as set out in the Annex. Where the statistical unit is a person, the data sets should be disaggregated by sex and age , and where relevant by other characteristics. Member States should aim to continuously develop innovative sources and methods and use them to improve statistics.

Timely access to and reuse of administrative data

National authorities in charge of administrative data sources relevant for the purposes of this Regulation should allow reuse of these data in time and frequency sufficient to produce and submit statistics within the deadlines and compliant with the specific quality requirements according to this Regulation. National statistical authorities and the national authorities in charge of the administrative records should establish the necessary cooperation mechanisms for the timely and free of charge access to those records.

For the purpose of producing statistics on the detailed topic of energy related characteristics of buildings, national statistical authorities should have timely and regular access to the national databases on energy performance of buildings and should be allowed to reuse administrative data from those databases.

For the purpose of producing population breakdowns by sex, national statistical institutes should use information available in national administrative data sources.

Data sharing

The Commission (Eurostat) and the national statistical authorities that use this secure data sharing infrastructure for the processing of personal data should be considered as joint controllers for the processing of personal data in the secure data sharing infrastructure.

Pilot and feasibility studies

The Commission (Eurostat) should, where necessary and appropriate for the purposes of this Regulation, launch pilot and feasibility studies that aim to:

- assess the availability of data sources and enhancing methods for providing statistics on the disability of persons and testing disaggregating statistics, including their comparability, in accordance with national law and practice on data protection and disclosure control;

- develop new methodologies and statistical techniques to reinforce quality and enhance information about hard-to-reach populations;

- reduce discrepancies in data of migration flows and ensuring their better comparability;

- reduce possible undercounting or double counting of people.

Financing

For the implementation of the Regulation, a financial contribution from the Single Market Programme should be made available to the national statistical authorities. In addition, the national statistical authorities should apply for support from other applicable EU financial programmes in accordance with the rules of those programmes.

The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs adopted the report by Irena JOVEVA (Renew, SI) on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on European statistics on population and housing, amending Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 and repealing Regulations (EC) No 763/2008 and (EU) No 1260/2013.

The committee responsible recommended that the position of the European Parliament adopted at first reading under the ordinary legislative procedure should amend the proposal as follows:

The role of European statistics on population and housing

European statistics on population and housing play a central role in policy-making and decision-making processes and, as such, they are required for the design, implementation and evaluation of Union policies aimed at implementing the European Pillar of Social Rights and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations (UN) 2030 Agenda.

Members also pointed out that statistics on migration and international protection are essential to gain an overview of migratory flows within the European Union and to enable Member States to apply EU law correctly.

Hard-to-reach population groups

European statistics on population and housing should address the persistent lack of data on hard-to-reach population groups, such as people residing in institutions (e.g. military institutions, penal and correctional institutions, school and university dormitories, religious institutions, hospitals, residential care centres, including institutions for disabled people and orphans), people aged over 75, disabled people, homeless people, people with a migrant background and stateless people.

In order to bridge that data divide and to prevent social and economic inequalities arising from it, the Member States should develop strategies and targeted solutions for collecting data about hard-to-reach population groups, in particular with regard to locating, contacting, persuading and interviewing such populations.

Members introduced a definition of ‘hard-to-reach population groups’, i.e. groups of individuals for whom there is a real or perceived barrier to full and representative inclusion in statistical data collection.

Statistical requirements

European statistics on population and housing shall cover the following domains: (a) demography; (b) housing; (c) families; and (d) households.

The topics set out in the demography domain, as well as in other relevant domains, in the Annex should be disaggregated, in accordance with national law and practice on data collection and disclosure, by age, gender and disability and where relevant other characteristics in accordance with the United Nations Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics.

Data sources and methods

Member States and the Commission (Eurostat) should use data sources provided that the data is collected and processed in accordance with the applicable Union law on data protection, respecting data subjects’ fundamental rights.

Quality requirements and quality reporting

Member States should take appropriate and effective measures to:

- avoid possible risks of undercounting or double counting related to the free movement of persons in the Union, the access of persons to cross-border services linked to vital events and the person rights to buy cross-border, own and use housing property across the Union, for example by introducing single digital identifiers;

- avoid possible risks of undercounting or double counting and ensure better comparability of migration flows.

The Commission should adopt implementing acts defining the practical arrangements for the quality reports and their content. Any major adaptation provided for in these implementing acts could be the subject of financial and technical support or a derogation.

In a duly reasoned request from the Commission (Eurostat), Member States should provide necessary additional clarifications to evaluate the quality of the statistics without undue delay.

Data sharing

Members stated that data sharing should be allowed and could take place on a voluntary basis, provided that it is without prejudice to the rules on the protection of personal data in accordance with Regulations (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR) and (EU) 2018/1725.

Funding

Member States should apply for support under the Technical Support Instrument to improve the quality of statistics and to develop methods in line with the requirements of the Regulation. The Commission may also provide assistance for the coordination of the exchange of best practices between Member States.

Derogations

Where the application of this Regulation requires major adaptations to be made to a Member State’s national statistical system, the Commission may grant, by means of implementing acts, derogations to that Member State, for a maximum duration of seven years.

Where delegated or implementing acts adopted pursuant to this Regulation require major adaptations to be made to a Member State’s national statistical system, the Commission may grant, by means of implementing acts, derogations to that Member State, for a maximum duration of three years.

The extent of mandatory collection of data should be balanced against the additional administrative burden and the additional costs to the Member States. Taking this into account, it should be possible to grant derogations from the requirements on the timing of data collection.

PURPOSE: to establish a common legal framework for the design, production and dissemination of European statistics on population and housing.

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

ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: the European Parliament decides in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure and on an equal footing with the Council.

BACKGROUND: European statistics on population and housing are required for the design, implementation and evaluation of Union policies, in particular those addressing the demographic change, the green and digital transformations, the promotion of energy efficiency, economic, social and territorial cohesion, and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations (UN) 2030 Agenda.

The evaluation of existing statistics on the population and housing censuses in the Union, statistics on international migration flows, migrant stocks and acquisitions of citizenship and demography statistics has shown that the current legal framework comprising Regulations (EC) No 862/2007, (EC) No 763/2008 and (EU) No 1260/2013 of the European Parliament and the Council has led to significant overall improvements of statistics compared to the 2005 situation without the current legal framework in force. That framework, however, has potential for a lack of coherence and comparability , which should be addressed.

Recent migration trends have created demands for timelier, more frequent, and more detailed European statistics on population , vital events and housing including details of topics or groups that have become politically and societally relevant during the past decade. Furthermore, the existing legal framework is not flexible enough to adapt to evolving policy needs and to enable the use of new sources at national and Union level. Furthermore, the structure of the existing legal framework in the form of three separate regulations, adopted at different times, has led to intrinsic inconsistencies of the statistics.

It is therefore necessary to replace the current legal framework by a new, more coherent and flexible one.

In the context of this initiative, European statistics on population mean official statistics at EU level on population, demographic events and migration and the various indicators based on these statistics.

CONTENT: the proposed regulation establishes a new framework for European statistics on population and housing. Integrating current statistics on demography, migration and censuses, it specifies that Member States must provide statistics on 3 domains ( demography, housing, families and households ), 11 related topics and 23 detailed topics.

The proposal contains:

- provisions to establish a harmonised definition of population based on sound statistical concepts for all products and to facilitate access to available data sources which will improve the production processes and the overall quality of social statistics;

- provisions to align population and international migration statistics more with statistics on administrative and judicial events related to asylum, legal and irregular migration

The new proposal is based on a common definition of the population based on the statistical concept of usual residence, without default exemptions. Moreover, scientific statistical estimation methods (such as ‘signs of life’ or ‘rate of stay’) are explicitly encouraged to make it possible to implement the definition starting from administrative data sources.

The details of data requirements would be specified in implementing acts, but the proposed regulation makes it possible to amend the list of detailed topics and their periodicity and reference times using delegated acts.

The proposal also provides the possibility of responding to upcoming data requirements with ad hoc data collections. It also requires pilot and feasibility studies to be launched as appropriate and offers potential co-financing to further modernise statistical production systems and test new topics.

In addition, a specific article on data sharing describes how confidential data can be shared under Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council for the specific purpose of population statistics.