15 Statistics
| Committee's assessment
| Legally and Politically important |
| Committee's decision | Cleared from scrutiny (by Resolution of the House of 20 January 2014)
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| Document details | Draft Regulation to amend the European Statistical Law
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| Legal base | Article 338 TFEU; co-decision; QMV
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| Department
Document numbers
| Office for National Statistics
(33844), 9122/12, COM(12) 167
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Summary and Committee's conclusions
15.1 Regulation (EC) 223/2009 is the framework legislation for
the European Statistical System. All other legislation under which
EU statistics are produced must be made in accordance with that
Regulation. In April 2012, the Commission proposed amendments
to four key features of the framework Regulation and this draft
Regulation was cleared from scrutiny after debate in January 2014
in European Committee B.
15.2 As we recorded in our last Report, the Government
has now told us of a new addition to the text of the draft Regulation,
which gives cause for concern and which was being put to COREPER
for agreement on 19 December 2014. This addition was about the
possibility of inspections by the Commission to investigate whether
or not a Member State should be subject to sanction for misrepresenting
statistical data. The Government holds that if any relevant sectoral
legislation seeks to create a power to impose fines, that power
would be unlawful, and any subsidiary power to investigate which
was inseparably linked to it would also be impermissible. Therefore
the Government was going to vote against the draft Regulation
at COREPER and, in the event that the proposal received a qualified
majority in support, would make a Minute statement to the effect
that it considers the provisions of sanctions regimes that are
not foreseen by the Treaty as illegal. We noted the Government's
concern about this addition to the draft Regulation and awaited
its promised account of the outcome of the COREPER meeting.
15.3 The Government tells us now that, despite criticisms
of the new provision by the UK and other Member States, the Presidency
decided at the COREPER meeting that there was sufficient support
for the compromise text to warrant proceeding to a vote on it
at an ECOFIN Council early in 2015 and that the Government tabled
a Minute statement against the new provision, supported by three
other Member States.
15.4 We presume that it is unlikely that the Government
will be able to prevent adoption of the compromise text by the
ECOFIN Council. But, noting its comment about the possibility
of Court of Justice adjudication on the use of Article 12.3b in
future sectoral legislation, we ask the Government whether it
intends to immediately challenge that provision if adopted in
the present amending Regulation.
Full details of
the documents: Draft Regulation amending
Regulation (EC) No. 223/2009 on European statistics: (33844),
9122/12, COM(12) 167.
Background
15.5 Regulation (EC) 223/2009 is the framework legislation
for the European Statistical System. All other legislation under
which EU statistics are produced must be made in accordance with
that Regulation. In April 2012, the Commission proposed amendments
to four key features of the framework Regulation — the coordinating
role of the National Statistical Institutes of Member States,
the role and professional independence of the heads of those institutes,
self-assessment of the EU statistics produced by a Member State
and a published statement of confidence in them and enhanced access
to administrative data. The draft Regulation was cleared from
scrutiny after debate in January 2014 in European Committee B.[68]
15.6 As we recorded in our last Report, the Government
has now told us of a new addition to the text of the draft Regulation,
Article 12.3b, which gives cause for concern and which was being
put to COREPER for agreement on 19 December 2014. This addition
was about the possibility of inspections by the Commission to
investigate whether or not a Member State should be subject to
sanction for misrepresenting statistical data. The Government
holds that if any relevant sectoral legislation made on the basis
of Article 338 TFEU (governing statistics) seeks to create a power
to impose fines, that power would be unlawful, and any subsidiary
power to investigate which was inseparably linked to it would
also be impermissible under Article 338. Therefore the Government
was going to vote against the draft Regulation at COREPER and,
in the event that the proposal received a qualified majority in
support, would make a Minute statement to the effect that it considers
the provisions of sanctions regimes that are not foreseen by the
Treaty as illegal.
15.7 We noted the Government's concern about this
addition to the draft Regulation and awaited its promised account
of the outcome of the COREPER meeting.
The Minister's letter of 6 January 2015
15.8 The Minister for Civil Society, Cabinet Office
(Mr Rob Wilson) reports the COREPER meeting of 19 December 2014
discussed the proposal as anticipated, where the Presidency sought
agreement to their compromise text.
15.9 The Minister says that the UK's Permanent Representative
set out the Government's objections to Article 12.3b. He elaborates
that:
· this
new provision would introduce a sanctions and inspection regime
that the Government considers as both undesirable and legally
impermissible;
· it is
particularly undesirable as it presents a basis for future proposals
that could subject the UK to a sanctions regime based on no-notice
on-site inspection visits by the Commission to the premises of
Government Departments that produce official statistics;
· notwithstanding
the need for the Court of Justice to adjudicate on the illegality
of such potential future proposals should they become Regulations,
the Government considers this to represent an unacceptable risk
of an unnecessary increase in the Commission's competence, which
it did not foresee in its signing of the Treaty; and
· the
provision would also risk unwelcome interference in the operation
of normal government business and would run against the principle
of subsidiarity, particularly as the Government considers that
the UK has a strong legal framework to guard against the concerns
this measure is designed to address.
15.10 The Minister tells us that the UK's Permanent
Representative introduced a statement to the COREPER minutes,
setting out the Government's objections to the references to sanctions
in Article 12.3b and that some other Member States presented a
variety of objections to the compromise, while Finland, Hungary,
and Lithuania joined the Minute statement proposed by the UK,
as follows:
"With reference to the proposal for a Regulation
of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation
(EC) no. 223/2009 on European Statistics, the United Kingdom consider
that while Article 338(1) TFEU is the legal basis for Regulation
223/2009 it does not constitute an appropriate legal basis for
Article 12.3(b) of the proposed regulation. The latter Article
provides for a competence of the European Commission to initiate
and conduct an investigation, in case sectoral legislation provides
for fines in cases where Member States misrepresent statistical
data. The United Kingdom underline that Article 338 TFEU does
not provide for the imposition of fines or other sanctions in
the field of statistics in sectoral legislation, therefore article
12.3(b) is not considered as a legally permissible basis for future
sectoral legislation."
15.11 The Minister continues that:
· the
Presidency concluded, however that, despite these objections,
there was sufficient support to proceed to a vote on the compromise
text at an ECOFIN Council meeting early in 2015, but without a
confirmed date; and
· in order
to provide further safeguard against future potential use of Article
12.3b to subject the UK and other Member States to a sanctions
regime not anticipated by the Treaty, the Government intends to
vote against the compromise text at the relevant Council meeting
and lay a similar statement in the minutes of that meeting.
Previous Committee Reports
Third Report HC 86-iii (2012-13), chapter 10 (23
May 2012), Nineteenth Report HC 86-xix (2012-13), chapter 9 (7
November 2012), Twenty-seventh Report HC 86-xxvii (2012-13), chapter
5 (16 January 2013), Twenty-ninth Report HC 86-xxix (2012-13),
chapter 6 (23 January 2013), Thirty-eighth Report HC 86-xxxvii
(2012-13), chapter 5 (26 March 2013), Thirteenth Report HC 83-xiii
(2013-14), chapter 5 (4 September 2013) and Twenty-eighth Report
HC 219-xxvii (2014-15), chapter 18 (7 January 2015).
68 Gen Co Debs, European Committee B, 20 January
2014, cols 3-10. Back
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