1.Background

Regulation (EC) No 543/2009 of 18 June 2009 concerning crop statistics and repealing Council Regulations (EEC) No 837/90 and (EEC) No 959/93 1 was modified by Regulation (EU) No 1350/2013 of 11 December 2013 amending certain legislative acts in the field of agricultural and fishery statistics 2 to align implementing powers with the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

Article 8a of Regulation (EC) No 543/2009 confers on the Commission the power to adopt delegated acts. According to Article 6 of Regulation (EC) No 543/2009 the power of delegation can be used to amend the transmission tables set out in the Annex to the Regulation.

Under Article 8a(2) of the Regulation, the power to adopt delegated acts is conferred for a period of five years from 10 January 2014. This power is to be tacitly extended for periods of five years unless the European Parliament or the Council object.

The Commission is obliged to draw up a report on the delegation of power not later than nine months before the end of the five-year period. This report fulfils this obligation.

2.Commission exercise of delegated powers under Regulation (EC) No 543/2009

The Commission used its power to adopt delegated acts to adopt Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/1557 of 13 July 2015, amending Regulation (EC) No 543/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning crop statistics. 3

The Commission’s periodic review of the collection of crop statistics data demonstrated that the Annex to Regulation (EC) No 543/2009 need an update to improve the clarity of concepts and data quality and to better respond to user needs, which were changed by the 2014 reform of the common agricultural policy. Eurostat carried out the review in close co-operation with the Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development and Member States.

As a result, Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/1557 amending Regulation (EC) No 543/2009 concerning crop statistics was adopted, updating the transmission tables of Regulation (EC) No 543/2009. The updates concerned mostly clarifications of variable and aggregate names; some redundant aggregates were dropped from the transmission tables.

The update of the Annex to Regulation (EC) No 543/2009 concerned only non-essential elements of that annex. The reduced number of aggregates and clear class names, hierarchy and composition of aggregates have improved the quality of data and reduced the number of errors linked to definitions. The data have become more comparable.

The impact on data collection and processing in Member States (both at the level of national statistical institutes and of respondents) was positive and relatively small.

3.Conclusions