52020PC0153

2018/0154 (COD)

COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION
TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

pursuant to Article 294(6) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union

concerning the

position of the Council on the adoption of a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 on Community statistics on migration and international protection

1.Background

Date of transmission of the proposal to the European Parliament and to the Council (document COM(2018) 307 final – 018/0154(COD)):	16.5.2018
Date of the position of the European Parliament, first reading:	16.4.2019
Date of adoption of the position of the Council:	20.3.2020

2.Objective of the proposal from the Commission

The aim of this proposal is: (i) to support the European agenda on migration by providing EU policy-makers and decision-makers with better and more timely statistics; and (ii) to strengthen the response to the challenges posed by migration. In particular, the initiative will upgrade European statistics on asylum and managed migration by providing a legal basis for statistics that are currently collected voluntarily.

In addition, the revision of Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 will improve the completeness, accuracy, timeliness and certainty of existing voluntary transmissions of data by national authorities. In particular, it will ensure that statistics are provided in areas where stakeholders have expressed clear needs, such as asylum, returns (where statistics will be compiled more frequently), resettlement, residence permits, and migrant children.

3.Comments on the position of the European Parliament

The European Parliament adopted its first reading position on 16 April 2019 based on the report voted by the LIBE Committee on 20 November 2018 and confirmed on 11 April 2019.

This first reading position proposed many amendments to the Commission proposal, based on statistical needs, policy needs, and the feasibility of producing statistics. There were also some amendments on: (i) the introduction of new statistics; and (ii) changes to the frequency and timeliness of statistics.

The European Parliament’s new negotiating team proposed to restart the negotiations based on the Romanian Presidency’s compromise proposal ( doc. 7935/19 of 1 April 2019).

Following the Council’s adoption of its first reading position, the European Parliament is expected to formally endorse the agreement reached in trilogues.

4.Comments on the position of the Council

The Council’s position reflects the agreement reached in trilogues. It supports and further refines the Commission proposal, and includes several requests from the European Parliament.

In particular, the Council in its first reading:

–states that: (i) the feasibility of a number of proposed new variables should first be tested through pilot studies, rather than starting immediately on the data collection; and (ii) new data should only be collected if the evaluation of the results of the pilot studies is positive;

–changes the frequency of one category of data collection from monthly to annual, while suggesting that the pilot study shall evaluate the provision of data with monthly frequency;

–includes a new article on financing, which provides financial support for both adapting data-collection tools and further data-collection processes;