Regulation (EC) No 184/2005 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 January 2005 on Community statistics concerning balance of payments, international trade in services and foreign direct investment

Member States shall submit to the Commission (Eurostat) data on balance of payments, international trade in services and foreign direct investment as referred to in Annex I. The data shall be as defined in Annex II.

Member States shall submit the data to the Commission (Eurostat) in accordance with the deadlines shown in Annex I.

The Commission is empowered to adopt delegated acts in accordance with Article 10 when, as a result of economic or technical changes, the geographical breakdown levels, institutional sector breakdown levels and economic activity breakdown levels set out in Tables 6, 7 and 8 of Annex I need to be updated, provided that such updates neither affect the reporting burden nor modify the applicable underlying conceptual framework.

The Commission is empowered to adopt delegated acts in accordance with Article 10 whenever certain requirements of data flows in Annex I need to be eliminated or reduced, provided that such elimination or reduction does not reduce the quality of the statistics produced in accordance with this Regulation.

When exercising these powers, the Commission shall ensure that the delegated acts do not impose a significant additional burden on the Member States or on the respondents.

Furthermore, the Commission shall duly justify the actions provided for in those delegated acts, considering, where appropriate, cost-effectiveness, including the burden on respondents and the production costs in accordance with Article 14(3) of Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council⁽¹⁾.

Member States shall collect the information required pursuant to this Regulation using all the sources they consider relevant and appropriate. These may include administrative data sources such as business registers.

Natural and legal persons required to supply information shall, when responding, comply with the time limits and definitions set by the national institutions responsible for the collection of data within the Member States in accordance with this Regulation.

Where the required data cannot be collected at a reasonable cost, best estimates may be transmitted (zero values included).

For the purpose of this Regulation, the quality criteria set out in Article 12(1) of Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 shall apply to the data to be transmitted in accordance with Article 5 of this Regulation.

Member States shall provide the Commission (Eurostat) with a report on the quality of the data transmitted (‘quality report’).

In applying the quality criteria referred to in paragraph 1 to the data covered by this Regulation, the modalities, structure and periodicity of the quality reports shall be defined by the Commission by means of implementing acts. Those implementing acts shall be adopted in accordance with the examination procedure referred to in Article 11(2).

The Commission (Eurostat) shall assess the quality of the data transmitted on the basis of an appropriate analysis of the quality reports, with the assistance of the European Statistical System Committee referred to in Article 11(1), and shall prepare and publish a report on the quality of European statistics covered by this Regulation. That report shall be submitted to the European Parliament and to the Council for information purposes.

Member States shall communicate to the Commission (Eurostat) any major methodological or other type of changes that would influence the data transmitted, no later than three months after any such change becomes applicable. The Commission shall notify the European Parliament and the other Member States of any such communication.

The statistics to be produced shall be grouped for transmission to the Commission (Eurostat) in accordance with the following data flows:

1. balance of payments monthly statistics;

2. balance of payments quarterly statistics;

3. international trade in services;

4. FDI flows;

5. FDI positions.

The Commission (Eurostat) and Member States, in cooperation with the relevant international partners, shall develop the appropriate methodology for compiling FDI statistics based on the ultimate ownership concept in addition to the immediate counterpart principle and FDI statistics distinguishing greenfield FDI transactions from takeovers.

By 20 July 2018, the Commission (Eurostat) shall institute pilot studies to be carried out by Member States relating to annual FDI statistics based on the ultimate ownership concept and FDI statistics distinguishing greenfield FDI transactions from takeovers. The purpose of such studies shall be to establish the conditions, including the methodological framework, to introduce new data collections on annual FDI statistics and to assess the costs of the related data collections, the implied statistical quality, as well as the cross-country comparability.

In order to facilitate carrying out the studies referred to in paragraph 3, the Union may provide financial support to the Member States in the form of grants in accordance with Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 966/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council⁽²⁾.

By 20 July 2019, the Commission (Eurostat) shall prepare a report on the findings of the studies referred to in paragraph 3. That report shall be forwarded to the European Parliament and to the Council and, if appropriate, shall identify the remaining conditions which need to be fulfilled in order to develop the methodology referred to in paragraph 2.

The Commission shall be empowered to adopt delegated acts in accordance with Article 10 in order to extend by 12 months the reporting deadline laid down in paragraph 5 of this Article where the Commission's assessment of the pilot studies referred to in that paragraph establishes that the identification of the remaining conditions is appropriate.

When exercising those powers, the Commission shall ensure that the delegated acts do not impose a significant additional burden on the Member States or on the respondents.

Furthermore, the Commission shall duly justify the actions provided for in those delegated acts, considering, where appropriate, cost-effectiveness, including the burden on respondents and the production costs in accordance with Article 14(3) of Regulation (EC) No 223/2009.

No later than 12 months after the date of issuing the report referred to in paragraph 5, the Commission shall, where appropriate, and depending in particular on the assessment by the Commission of the result of the pilot studies referred to in paragraph 3, make a proposal for amendments to this Regulation in order to define the methodological and data requirements for annual FDI statistics on the ultimate ownership concept and for annual FDI statistics distinguishing greenfield FDI transactions from takeovers.