REGULATORY SCRUTINY BOARD OPINION 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 1260/201

EUROPEAN COMMISSION
Brussels, 18.3.2022
SEC(2023) 38 final
REGULATORY SCRUTINY BOARD OPINION
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
{COM(2023) 31 final }
{SWD(2023) 11 final,
SWD(2023) 12 final,
SWD(2023) 13 final,
SWD(2023) 14 final,
SWD(2023) 15 final}
Offentligt
KOM (2023) 0031 - SEK-dokument
Europaudvalget 2023
________________________________
This opinion concerns a draft impact assessment which may differ from the final version.
Commission européenne, B-1049 Bruxelles - Belgium. Office: BERL 08/010. E-mail: regulatory-scrutiny-board@ec.europa.eu
EUROPEAN COMMISSION
Regulatory Scrutiny Board
Brussels,
RSB
Opinion
Title: Impact assessment / European statistics on population
Overall opinion: POSITIVE WITH RESERVATIONS
(A) Policy context
Eurostat, the statistical office of the EU, ensures the production of high quality,
comparable European statistics. The main objective of European statistics is to serve EU
policy design, implementation and monitoring, and their main users are EU institutions.
European statistics on population represent official European statistics on population,
demographic events and migration, the statistics from the population and housing censuses,
and the various indicators based on these statistics.
EU institutions need complete, timely, reliable, detailed, harmonised and comparable
European statistics on population. The general goal of this initiative is to respond better to
users’ needs, and to modernise and enhance the relevance, efficiency and coherence of
European population statistics.
(B) Summary of findings
The Board notes the additional information provided in advance of the meeting and
commitments to make changes to the report.
However, the report still contains significant shortcomings. The Board gives a
positive opinion with reservations because it expects the DG to rectify the following
aspects:
(1) The report is not sufficiently clear on the impacts on stakeholders. It does not
show which Member States will be particularly affected by the proposed changes
and how.
(2) The report does not present clearly enough the benefits and costs of the options.
The comparison of the options in terms of effectiveness, efficiency and coherence
is not robust enough.
(3) The choice of the preferred option is not adeqautely justified in terms of overall
performance, proportionality and respect of the subsidiarity principle.
(4) The report does not reflect sufficiently the views of the different groups of
stakeholders.
Ref. Ares(2022)1995252 - 18/03/2022
2
(C) What to improve
(1) The report should explain in detail the scope of the initiative and the scale of the
problems, which should include a clearer narrative on the overall importance of population
statistics. The problem definition should include issues associated with the burden faced by
data providers such as National Statistical Institutes. The report should analyse in greater
detail the administrative cost implications of the different methods used by Member States for
the collection of data, in particular primary data collection versus extraction from
administrative sources. It should improve the analysis of simplification potential.
(2) The baseline scenario should not be presented as a policy option and it should provide
more information on the on-going activities of Member States to modernise their national
statistical systems. The policy options should be assessed and compared against this dynamic
baseline.
(3) The report should better explain the potential impacts of the options on Member States
and whether the implementation will potentially be more problematic or costly for some of
them. It should make sure that the analysis covers all relevant stakeholders and is clear on how
different stakeholder types are impacted. This should include a clarification of the assessment
of costs to businesses in the ‘one in one out’ approach. The report should also present the risks
and uncertainties associated with the impacts of each option.
(4) The report should better explain the scoring methodology applied for the multi-criteria
analysis and how the different performance levels and particular scores of each of the options
were conceived. It should not only present the findings in a tabular form, but also provide more
comprehensive explanation on the reasons and supporting evidence behind the particular
scoring of options and measures. It should reflect whether the comparative assessment
methodology used is the best way to bring out the differences between the options in terms of
costs and benefits for decision-making.
(5) The report should better compare the options in terms of their effectiveness, efficiency and
coherence dimension. It should fold the assessment of wider impacts into the effectiveness
analysis. It should better justify the choice of the preferred option in terms of the available
supporting evidence on the overall performance, proportionality and respect of the subsidiarity
principle (in particular with respect to requiring interoperable national statistical population
registers). It should also clarify against which benchmark the success of the initiative will be
evaluated and within which period.
(6) The report should bring out more clearly the different views of stakeholders (including
national statistical offices). It should systematically integrate their views and level of support
on the need to act, policy options and measures as well implementation requirements.
The Board notes the estimated costs and benefits of the preferred option(s) in this
initiative, as summarised in the attached quantification tables.
Some more technical comments have been sent directly to the author DG.
3
(D) Conclusion
The DG may proceed with the initiative.
The DG must revise the report in accordance with the Board’s findings before
launching the interservice consultation.
If there are any changes in the choice or design of the preferred option in the final
version of the report, the DG may need to further adjust the attached quantification
tables to reflect this.
Full title Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of
the Council on European statistics on population
Reference number PLAN/2021/10584
Submitted to RSB on 16 February 2022
Date of RSB meeting 16 March 2022
4
ANNEX: Quantification tables extracted from the draft impact assessment report
The following tables contain information on the costs and benefits of the initiative on
which the Board has given its opinion, as presented above.
If the draft report has been revised in line with the Board’s recommendations, the content
of these tables may be different from those in the final version of the impact assessment
report, as published by the Commission.
I. Overview of Benefits (total for all provisions) – Preferred Option
Description Amount Comments
Direct benefits
Better information on own local/regional environment Not quantified People (citizens and migrants)
Reduced response burden Not quantified
Better EU level timeliness and completeness of
statistics across all Member States
Not quantified EU level institutional users
Better EU level comparability and coherence of
statistics across all Member States
Not quantified
More accurate and comparable total population counts
for Council voting
Not quantified
Improved inputs to demographic change monitoring
and projecting the long-term budget sustainability in
relation to population ageing
Not quantified
Better data evidence for monitoring and policy-
making
Not quantified
Better comparability with other Member States and
EU regions
Not quantified Other institutional users (national and sub-
national levels)
Better data evidence (through grids) for policy-
making in border regions and local crisis response
Not quantified
Better research/analysis incl. improved comparability
across the EU
Not quantified Other professional users
Reduced administrative burden (through ability to
find all needed statistics on Eurostat website)
Not quantified
Economic benefits from better European statistics
available
Not quantified
Improved comparability of statistics with other
Member States
Not quantified Statistics producers (NSIs)
Improved accuracy and coverage of statistics due to
interoperability with other Member States
Not quantified
Reduced administrative burden (through simplified
statistics transmission processes)
Not quantified
Reduced administrative burden (through integrated
statistics production process)
e.g. up to EUR 575m
per EU census round
Reduced administrative burden (through improved
use of administrative and/or other data sources)
Not quantified
Reduced administrative burden (relating to regulatory
changes to adapt to evolving policy needs)
Not quantified
Reduced administrative burden through streamlined Not quantified Administrative data providers
5
data exchange with NSIs
Increased value added from own data through
improved reuse
Not quantified
Improved legal base of statistical cooperation through
clear mandate
Not quantified
Better data evidence for other European statistics (e.g.
sample surveys, national accounts)
Not quantified Eurostat
Improved collaboration with ESS partners due to EU
wide interoperability
Not quantified
Reduced administrative burden (relating to regulatory
changes to adapt to evolving policy needs)
Not quantified
Reduced administrative burden (related to
coordination/ quality assurance for voluntary data)
Not quantified
Indirect benefits
Benefits from improved policy-making Not quantified People
Reputational gains from improved policy-making and
EU decision-making in general
Not quantified EU level institutional users
Reputational gains from improved visibility and
transparency in a European context
Not quantified Other institutional users (national and sub-
national levels)
Increased ability to meet legal requirements Not quantified Statistics producers (NSIs)
Increased staff skills Not quantified
Improvements in administrative registers thanks to
closer collaboration with NSI
Not quantified Administrative data providers
Reputational gains from improved reuse of
administrative registers
Not quantified
Advancement of Eurostat mission ‘to provide high
quality statistics and data on Europe’
Not quantified Eurostat
Improved collaboration with EU level policy users Not quantified
Reputational gains from enhanced international
standing of European statistics free for all
Not quantified
(1) Estimates are gross values relative to the baseline for the preferred option as a whole (i.e. the
impact of individual actions/obligations of the preferred option are aggregated together); (2) Please
indicate which stakeholder group is the main recipient of the benefit in the comment section;(3) For
reductions in regulatory costs, please describe details as to how the saving arises (e.g. reductions in
adjustment costs, administrative costs, regulatory charges, enforcement costs, etc.;); (4) Cost
savings related to the ’one in, one out’ approach are detailed in Tool #58 and #59 of the ‘better
regulation’ toolbox. * if relevant
II. Overview of costs – Preferred option (in thousands of 2021 EUR)
Citizens/Consumers Businesses Administrations
One-off Recurrent One-off Recurrent One-off Recurrent
Policy
Option
D.2
Direct adjustment
costs
- - - -
25,237 – 27,894 N/A
Direct
administrative
costs
- - - -
N/A 33,770 – 37,325
IT costs - - - - 24,778 – 27,387 17,586 – 19,467
6
Direct regulatory
fees and charges
- - - -
Not estimated Not estimated
Direct
enforcement costs
- - - -
N/A 73,699 – 81,430
Indirect costs - - - - Not estimated Not estimated
Electronically signed on 18/03/2022 12:34 (UTC+01) in accordance with Article 11 of Commission Decision (EU) 2021/2121