(1)

Council Regulation (EC) No 2533/98 (4) is a key component of the legal framework supporting the statistical collection tasks of the European Central Bank (ECB) assisted by the national central banks. The ECB has consistently relied on that Regulation to carry out and monitor the coordinated collection of statistical information necessary to undertake the tasks of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB).

(2)

Regulation (EC) No 2533/98 was amended several times to review the scope of the reporting requirements necessary for the performance of the ESCB’s tasks and to enable the transmission and use of statistical information, collected by the ESCB, by ESCB members and other authorities responsible for supervision, macroprudential oversight and resolution.

(3)

Digital transformation has introduced radical new opportunities to integrate digital technologies not only in businesses, but also in the provision of public services. It has created an unprecedented environment that has given rise to the need for new statistics in order for the ESCB to carry out its tasks and has made it possible for granular data to be collected more efficiently. Moreover, recent economic and financial developments such as the climate emergency, the COVID-19 pandemic and the energy and cost-of-living crisis triggered by Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine have amplified demands and expectations for timelier, more frequent and more detailed statistics needed to support the performance of the ESCB’s tasks. At the same time, it is important to balance those demands and expectations with the need to keep the burden placed on the reporting agents to a minimum, given that competitiveness and productivity are essential conditions for businesses to flourish. For that reason, it is important to adapt the legal framework to support the ‘once only’ principle in relation to statistical and regulatory reporting wherever possible, to ensure that reporting agents do not have to report the same data more than once. Those adaptations should have regard to the independence of the ECB and the statistical principles laid down in Regulation (EC) No 2533/98. To avoid the need for several authorities and bodies of the Union or of the Member States to collect the same statistical information, statistical information should be shared among members of the ESCB and by members of the ESCB with members of the European Statistical System (ESS) and with other relevant parties in well-defined circumstances, irrespective of which member of the ESCB collected the statistical information.

(4)

To reflect current realities and the digital environment in which the ESCB operates, new or updated definitions should be introduced in Regulation (EC) No 2533/98 to clarify the concepts of ‘sharing’, ‘other legitimate party’ and ‘core reference data’. Some other definitions should be updated to ensure consistency with Union law.

(5)

A homogenous reporting population is necessary for the production of the consolidated balance sheet of the monetary financial institutions (MFIs) sector of the participating Member States, which provides a comprehensive statistical picture of monetary developments in the Member States whose currency is the euro, seen as one economic territory. For this reason, the ECB has established and maintains a list of MFIs for statistical purposes based on a common definition, which specifies that MFIs include credit institutions as defined in Union law. It should therefore be clarified that even in the exceptional cases where a credit institution as defined under Union law is classified outside the ‘financial corporations (S.12)’ sector in the European system of national and regional accounts 2010, it would fall within the limits of the reference reporting population from which the members of the ESCB has the right to collect statistical information. The collection of that information is necessary for the application by the ECB of minimum reserve requirements to credit institutions for monetary policy purposes in accordance with Article 19 of the Statute of the European System of Central Banks and of the European Central Bank and Regulation (EU) 2021/378 of the European Central Bank (5). Where any other financial institutions or undertakings which are subject to prudential supervision are classified outside the ‘financial corporations’ sector, the right of the members of the ESCB to collect statistical information on them should not be impaired.

(6)

Moreover, to align with the statistical principles of cost-effectiveness and minimisation of the reporting burden, the ECB should also have the right to collect statistical information from reporting agents on their controlled entities and on branches, including where the branch is resident in another country. That possibility would allow the ECB to implement the ‘once only’ principle in its statistical reporting effectively, thereby eliminating duplicative reporting requirements. It would also allow the approach for statistical reporting to be more closely aligned with the ‘home approach’ for supervisory regulatory reporting on branch activities. The ECB would also have more flexibility to adopt different approaches with regard to the extent of consolidation in statistical reporting.

(7)

For the purposes of its statistical collection tasks, the ECB is required to cooperate with the Union institutions, bodies, offices or agencies and with the competent authorities of the Member States. To reflect that close cooperation, when laying down and imposing reporting requirements in order to collect the statistical information that is necessary to undertake the ESCB’s tasks, the ECB should take into account the potential use of such information for the performance of tasks concerning policies relating to the prudential supervision of credit institutions, as well as the information from other institutions, bodies, offices, agencies of the Union or competent authorities of the Member States to which members of the ESCB have a right of access. That requirement is necessary to allow the maximum use of existing information and to minimise the burden on reporting agents.

(8)

The limits within and the conditions under which the ECB is entitled to impose sanctions on reporting agents for failure to comply with the obligations arising from Regulation (EC) No 2533/98 or with the obligations laid down in ECB regulations and decisions imposing statistical reporting requirements should be updated to ensure that sanctions have sufficient deterrent effect. Furthermore, the maximum amount of the sanctions that may be imposed by the ECB on a reporting agent for failure to comply with obligations imposing statistical reporting requirements should, to a large extent, be aligned with the maximum amounts that may be imposed for failure to comply with other non-statistical obligations imposed by the ECB.

(9)

Confidential statistical information which the ECB and the national central banks obtain for the performance of the tasks of the ESCB must be protected in order to prevent its unlawful use and disclosure. Nevertheless, the confidentiality regime that applies to confidential statistical information collected by the ESCB should be revised and clarified to ensure that the ECB and the national central banks use and share with each other confidential statistical information for the performance of the tasks of the ESCB referred to in the Treaty, such as for the efficient development, production or dissemination of statistics or for increasing their quality. That revision is necessary to ensure that the information may be collected by the ECB with the assistance of the national central banks in accordance with the ‘once only’ principle. Moreover, to reduce the need for duplicative statistical and regulatory reporting requirements, to facilitate cooperation among authorities and bodies of the Union and of the Member States and to reduce unnecessary administrative burdens, the members of the ESCB should be obliged to share confidential statistical information with certain authorities and bodies for the performance of their tasks relating to supervision or to the stability and effectiveness of the financial system, including market integrity and investor protection, and with the ESS authorities. The members of the ESCB should have the flexibility to share confidential statistical information with other authorities and bodies of the Union and of the Member States or with researchers affiliated with scientific research bodies in specified circumstances. It should be also possible to share a specific and reduced set of confidential statistical information with reporting agents, where necessary for certain statistical purposes or where the sources are available to the reporting agent, for example, where such information is reported by an entity controlled by the reporting agent or its branches. The data sharing possibilities under the revised confidentiality regime are to be independent of the ESCB member collecting the statistical information. To maintain the confidence of reporting agents, there should be consistent arrangements to protect confidential statistical information and enhanced transparency on the uses to which statistical information may be put. That data sharing should exclude any confidential statistical information that was initially received from an ESS authority.

(10)

ESCB members should continue to be accountable for the use and protection of the confidential statistical information collected by the members of the ESCB. Therefore, appropriate governance for the further transmission to third parties is necessary. Hence the transmission of confidential statistical information from any receiving party to third parties should require the authorisation of the ESCB member that shared the information. The explicit autorisation of the ESCB member can be granted once and as generically as possible for relevant categories of information, thereby avoiding unnecessary administrative procedures while maintaining the accountability of ESCB members.

(11)

Pursuant to Directive (EU) 2019/1024 of the European Parliament and of the Council (6) and Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/138 (7), information on companies and company ownership is included in the list of high-value datasets. This ensures that public data of the highest socio-economic potential are made available for re-use with minimum legal and technical restriction and free of charge. Regulation (EC) No 2533/98 should therefore be adapted to reflect the availability of such data on companies and their high value for statistical purposes and other ESCB functions. In addition to that public data and in line with the principles of cost-effectiveness, minimisation of the reporting burden and high output quality, the members of the ESCB should be able to share with reporting agents core reference data comprising specific attributes on legal persons, branches and institutional units. The conditions under which it should be possible to use core reference data collected by the members of the ESCB for statistical and other purposes should therefore be specified.

(12)

European statistics are developed, produced and disseminated by both the ESCB and the ESS under separate legal frameworks reflecting their respective governance structures. It is therefore important that Regulation (EC) No 2533/98 take account of amendments to Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council (8) and that it apply without prejudice to that Regulation.

(13)

Where the activities to be carried out under Regulation (EC) No 2533/98 involve the processing of personal data for official statistical purposes, such processing should comply with the relevant Union law on personal data protection, namely Regulations (EU) 2016/679 (9) and (EU) 2018/1725 (10) of the European Parliament and of the Council. In accordance with the principles set out in those Regulations, such processing should be subject to appropriate safeguards for the rights and freedoms of the data subject. Those safeguards should ensure that technical and organisational measures are in place in particular to ensure respect for the principle of data minimisation. Those measures can include pseudonymisation.

(14)

In order to maintain Regulation (EC) No 2533/98 as an effective instrument for the ECB to carry out the statistical information collection tasks of the ESCB, it is necessary to allow the maximum use of existing information, administrative data, statistical registers and other available sources. Given that the use of multi-source statistics should be further encouraged, with statistics developed or produced on the basis of a variety of data sources, a harmonised framework should apply to the use and sharing of such information.

(15)

Regulation (EC) No 2533/98 should therefore be amended accordingly,

(1)

Article 1 is amended as follows:

(2)

Article 2 is amended as follows:

(3)

Article 3 is replaced by the following:

(4)

Article 7 is amended as follows:

(5)

The following Article is inserted:

(6)

Article 8 is replaced by the following:

(*10)  Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/138 of 21 December 2022 laying down a list of specific high-value datasets and the arrangements for their publication and re-use (OJ L 19, 20.1.2023, p. 43, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg_impl/2023/138/oj).’;"

(7)

Article 8a is amended as follows:

(8)

Article 8c is replaced by the following:

(*11)  Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation) (OJ L 119, 4.5.2016, p. 1, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016/679/oj)."

(*12)  Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2018 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by the Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 and Decision No 1247/2002/EC (OJ L 295, 21.11.2018, p. 39, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2018/1725/oj).’;"

(9)

Article 8d is replaced by the following: