COMMISSION IMPLEMENTING REGULATION (EU) …/...

of 30.7.2025

specifying the modalities, structure and assessment indicators for the quality reports to be transmitted pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 138/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council

(Text with EEA relevance)

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION,

Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,

Having regard to Regulation (EC) No 138/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 5 December 2003 on the economic accounts for agriculture in the Community 1 , and in particular Article 3b(4) thereof,

Whereas:

(1)Regulation (EC) No 138/2004 sets up the Economic Accounts for Agriculture in the European Union by providing for the methodology and the time limits for the transmission of the agricultural accounts.

(2)In accordance with Article 3b(3) of Regulation (EC) No 138/2004, Member States are to transmit a quality report to the Commission (Eurostat) for the first time by 31 December 2025 and every five years thereafter.

(3)There is a need to ensure common quality reporting standards for the exchange of quality-related data and metadata. This need can be fulfilled by specifying the modalities, structure and assessment indicators for the quality reports. The standards should contribute to the harmonisation of quality assurance and reporting. 

(4)The Single Integrated Metadata Structure (SIMS) 2 was approved as a metadata standard by the European Statistical System Committee. The Commission invited Member States to ensure that their national statistical authorities apply the statistical concepts listed therein when compiling reference metadata and quality reports and when exchanging reference metadata and quality reports 3 . The application of SIMS contributes to the harmonisation of quality assurance and reporting, thereby helping to meet the statistical quality requirements of Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council 4 , which provides a mandatory reference framework for European statistics. 

(5)The European Statistical System has a long-standing transmission standard as approved by the Statistical Programme Committee in 2006. The standard states that data and metadata for all statistical domains are to arrive at a common reception area in the Commission (Eurostat) so they can be automatically monitored, checked and delivered into the target production environment. That standard should be used for the reports transmitted under this Regulation.

(6)The measures provided for in this Regulation are in accordance with the opinion of the European Statistical System Committee,

HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:

Article 1

Modalities

1.Each Member State shall transmit a quality report to the Commission (Eurostat) for the first time relating to the reference year 2023 and thereafter for each reference year ending in 8 and 3.

2.The quality reports shall be sent to the Commission (Eurostat) using the European Statistical System transmission standard. 

Article 2

Structure

1.Each Member State shall submit a single quality report covering all the data of the Economic Accounts for Agriculture transmission programme as set out in Annex II to Regulation (EC) No 138/2004. 

2.The detailed structure and contents of the quality reports are set out in Annex I. Those reports shall also refer to and give reasons for any instances in which the appropriate quality standards have not been complied with or in which statistical concepts have not been correctly applied, or both.

Article 3

Assessment indicators

The quality of the data and metadata transmitted shall be assessed in relation to the set of quality and performance indicators set out in Annex II.

Article 4

Entry into force

This Regulation shall enter into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.

This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.

Done at Brussels, 30.7.2025

(1)    OJ L 33, 5.2.2004, p. 1, ELI:  http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2004/138/oj . 

(2)     https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/quality/quality-monitoring/quality-reporting .  

(3)    Commission Recommendation (EU) 2023/397 of 17 February 2023 on reference metadata and quality reports for the European Statistical System, replacing Recommendation 2009/498/EC on reference metadata for the European Statistical System (OJ L 53, 21.2.2023, p. 104, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reco/2023/397/oj ).

(4)    Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2009 on European statistics and repealing Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1101/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the transmission of data subject to statistical confidentiality to the Statistical Office of the European Communities, Council Regulation (EC) No 322/97 on Community Statistics, and Council Decision 89/382/EEC, Euratom establishing a Committee on the Statistical Programmes of the European Communities (OJ L 87, 31.3.2009, p. 164, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2009/223/oj ).

ANNEX I

STRUCTURE AND CONTENTS OF THE QUALITY REPORTS

The quality reports shall contain quality-related data and metadata in line with the following quality criteria and statistical concepts. If a particular statistical concept is not relevant to a statistical operation, the concept should remain in the quality report accompanied by the words ‘Not applicable’ and a short explanation.

Statistical presentation    
Description of the disseminated data.    

This concept includes the following sub-concepts:    

·Data description

·Classification system

·Sector coverage

·Statistical concepts and definitions

·Statistical unit

·Statistical population

·Reference area

·Time coverage

·Base period

Unit of measure    
The unit in which the data values are measured.

Reference period    
The period of time or point in time to which the measured observation is intended to refer.

Institutional mandate    
Law, set of rules or other formal set of instructions assigning responsibility as well as the authority to an organisation for the collection, processing and dissemination of statistics.

This concept includes the following sub-concepts:

·Legal acts and other agreements

·Data sharing

Confidentiality

A property of data indicating the extent to which their unauthorised disclosure could be prejudicial or harmful to the interest of the source or other relevant parties.

This concept includes the following sub-concepts:

·Confidentiality – policy

·Confidentiality – data treatment

Release policy    
Rules for disseminating statistical data to all interested parties.

This concept includes the following sub-concepts:    

·Release calendar

·Release calendar access

·User access

Frequency of dissemination    
The time interval at which the statistics are disseminated over a given time period.

Accessibility and clarity    
The conditions and modalities by which users can access, use and interpret data.

This concept includes the following sub-concepts:

·News release

·Publications

·Online database

·Other

·Documentation on methodology

·Metadata completeness – rate

·Quality documentation

Quality management    
Systems and frameworks in place within an organisation to manage the quality of statistical products and processes.

This concept includes the following sub-concepts:

·Quality assurance

·Quality assessment

Relevance

The degree to which statistical information meets current and potential needs of users.

This concept includes the following sub-concepts:

·User needs

·User satisfaction

·Completeness

·Data completeness – rate for producers

Accuracy and reliability

Accuracy of data is the closeness of computations or estimates to the exact or true values that the statistics were intended to measure.    
   
Reliability of the data is the closeness of the initial estimated value to the subsequent estimated value.

Timeliness and punctuality

Timeliness is the length of time between the event or phenomenon the data describe and the availability of the data.

Punctuality is the time lag between the target date when data should have been delivered and the actual delivery of the data.

This concept includes the following sub-concepts:

·Timeliness

·Time lag – first results for producers

·Punctuality – delivery and publication for users

·Punctuality – delivery and publication for producers

Coherence and comparability

The adequacy of statistics to be reliably combined in different ways and for various uses and the extent to which differences between statistics can be attributed to differences between the true values of the statistical characteristics.

This concept includes the following sub-concepts:

·Comparability – geographical

·Comparability – over time and length of comparable time series for users

·Length of comparable time series for producers

·Coherence – cross-domain

·Coherence – sub-annual and annual statistics

·Coherence – National Accounts

·Coherence - internal 

Cost and burden

Cost associated with the collection and production of a statistical product and burden on respondents.

Data revision

Any change in a value of a statistic released to the public.

This concept includes the following sub-concepts:

·Data revision – policy

·Data revision – practice

·Data revision – average absolute size

Statistical processing

This concept includes the following sub-concepts:

·Source data

·Frequency of data collection

·Data collection

·Data validation

·Data compilation

·Adjustment

ANNEX II

QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE INDICATORS TO ASSESS THE QUALITY OF THE ECONOMIC ACCOUNTS FOR AGRICULTURE DATA AND METADATA

The following sub-concepts from Annex I shall be used as assessment indicators.

Metadata completeness – rate

The ratio of the number of metadata elements provided to the total number of metadata elements applicable.

Data completeness – rate for producers

The ratio of the number of data cells provided to the number of data cells required by Eurostat.

Time lag – first results for producers

The number of days from the last day of the reference period to the day of publication of first results, at producer report level of detail.

Punctuality – delivery and publication for producers

The number of days between the delivery date of data and the target date for delivery as laid down by Regulation (EC) No 138/2004.

Length of comparable time series for producers

The number of reference periods in time series from last break.

Data revision – average absolute size

The average over a time period of the absolute revisions of a key indicator.