Select Committee on European Scrutiny Thirteenth Report


14. REGIONAL STATISTICS


(23667)

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Draft Regulation on the establishment of a common classification

of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS).

Legal base:Article 285 EC; co-decision; qualified majority voting
Department:Office for National Statistics
Basis of consideration:SEM of 12 February 2003
Previous Committee Report:HC 152-xxxviii (2001-02), paragraph 36 (16 October 2002)
To be discussed in Council:Not applicable
Committee's assessment:Politically important
Committee's decision:Cleared (decision reported on 16 October 2002)


Background

  14.1  NUTS (Nomenclature of Units for Territorial Statistics) is a classification of geographical areas within the EU for producing comparable regional statistics. The NUTS system uses criteria to subdivide each Member State into a series of areas to correspond with one of five NUTS levels. The highest is NUTS level 1, which broadly corresponds to standard regions in the UK. The most detailed is NUTS level 5, which corresponds to individual wards. Other NUTS levels refer to groups of local authorities and individual counties. NUTS is the basis for EU regional statistics, but also has a wider importance because it is used when determining eligibility for Structural Funds and State Aid.

  14.2  In 2001 the Commission presented a draft Regulation to provide a legal base for the breakdown of European statistics, to fix the current breakdown of regions for a number of years and define clear rules for future amendments. In October 2002 we cleared the latest text of the draft Regulation[24], but we asked the Financial secretary to the Treasury (Ruth Kelly) for an explanation of what the Government's intention is for the Regulation's use in relation to Gibraltar.

    

The Minister's response

  14.3  In her SEM the Minister draws our attention to the preamble to the Regulation, which includes the following: "The NUTS classification is restricted to the economic territory of the Member States and does not provide complete coverage of the territory to which the Treaty establishing the European Union applies. Its use for community purposes will therefore need to be assessed on a case by case basis."

  14.4  The Minister continues by saying:

"Hence as there has been agreement to the use of the Regulation on a case by case basis (where part of the European Union is not part of its economic territory ie Gibraltar) the Government will continue to interpret this as meaning Gibraltar is a de facto NUTS2 area."

  14.5  But she adds:

      "The Government of Gibraltar is dissatisfied that they are not formally covered by the Regulation but the UK Government as with other EU member states has to abide by the 1991 council Decision that defines the economic territory of the EU."

Conclusion

  14.6  We thank the Minister for this explanation. We note the Government of Gibraltar's reservations about the Regulation but also note the UK Government's intention as to how in fact the Regulation will be applied to Gibraltar.

        


24  See headnote. Back


 
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