1. Legislation in preparation: draft implementing act (point 5 of the agenda)
Eurostat – Unit E2
Arturo de la Fuente
Joint meeting Working Groups on Environmental Accounts & Environmental Expenditure Statistics
Luxembourg, 10 March 2015

2. Existing obligations to develop Reg. 691/2011
Indicative compendium for EGSS (Art. 3.5)
Deadline 31 December 2015
Technical format for data transmission (Art. 6)
No deadline
Modalities, structure and periodicity of quality reports (Art. 7)
Eurostat proposes one single implementing act covering the 3 issues
Separate delegated act for energy product list

3. Indicative compendium EGSS (1/3)
Lawmakers introduced a provision in Article 3 during the negotiations to amend Regulation 691/2011 (module EGSS)
Eurostat to establish an indicative compendium to facilitate a uniform application of Annex V i.e. module EGSS
Elements of the Eurostat proposal:
1 table of economic activities
1 table of environmental goods and services
How to use those tables to facilitate uniform application while providing flexibility
There is also a 3rd table about categories of data sources. It is not proposed for inclusion in the legal act

4. Indicative compendium EGSS (2/3)
Tables of activities and goods and services
Indicating NACE, CEPA and CReMA class
Proposed tables based on:
Eurostat experience collecting voluntary EGSS transmissions
National experiences
Handbooks and practical guides
Input from the Task Force on environmental transfers
Some WG members sent written comments after document disseminated
Eurostat welcomes more written comments after this WG meeting and before the June DIMESA

5. Indicative compendium EGSS (3/3)
How to provide for flexibility in the application of the tables?
Two-step approach proposed:
Countries must analyse the 2 tables to assess which codes have national relevance
Relevance means:
Statistical significance of the products/activities
Existence of data sources to produce estimates
The products/activities identified as relevant must be covered in the national EGSS calculations
This approach means that countries must report to Eurostat about the relevance of the products/activities
Assessment of the relevance must be repeated regularly

6. Technical format for data transmission
Proposed text:
"Member States shall provide data required by the Reg. 691/2011 using the data and metadata exchange standards by the ESS"
Explanation:
Text agreed with Eurostat services concerned
Similar texts exist in other domains
It does not mention explicitly SDMX. DSD not ruled by the legal act
Intention is moving gradually into ESS standards while avoiding unnecessary burden for transmissions

7. Quality reports
Paragraph 1: quality criteria are those from Reg. 223/2009 on the ESS
Paragraph 2: quality reports with annual periodicity and same deadline as data transmissions i.e., different from each module
Paragraph 3: scope of quality reports. Text proposed has been used in other statistical domains, adapted to (the quality dimensions of) accounts
The idea is to
Maintain the status quo as regards contents of QR
Allowing for future improvements of QR contents
Gradually move to transmissions based on ESS metadata handler (web form)

8. Next steps Collect comments from the WG
Improve the proposed draft legal act
Seek support from DIMESA in June meeting
Adoption by ESSC in September
Launch legal procedure
Publication by 31 December 2015
EGSS compendium can be used in the 2016 transmission
Trasmission becomes mandatory in 2017
Format for data transmissions and quality reports would be changed gradually

9. Questions for the WG The WG is asked to:
Propose improvements to the draft legal act
Endorse the proposal as to move forward to DIMESA