Council Directive 72/221/EEC of 6 June 1972 concerning coordinated annual surveys of industrial activity

The Member States, in technical cooperation with the Commission, shall take all necessary steps for collecting annual statistical data with a view to drawing up coherent statistics on the structure and productive activity of industry in the Member States. This first collection of data shall be made in 1974, at the latest and shall relate to the preceding year.

The surveys shall cover all industrial undertakings and small businesses, if any, which employ twenty or more persons and whose principal activity is listed in one of the Divisions of the Nomenclature of Economic Activities in the European Communities (NACE), for industry, including energy and water, and also construction (NACE 1 to 5). Surveys shall, at least once in every five years, be extended to cover undertakings employing fewer than 20 persons. The Commission, in agreement with the Member States, shall appoint the years in which the surveys shall be so extended. Surveys into undertakings employing fewer than twenty persons may be carried out by means of sampling.

The statistical units shall be the undertaking, the economic activity unit and, where regional statistics are concerned, also the local unit. Statistical units are defined in Part I of the NACE.

Surveys shall cover the variables listed in the Annex to this Directive. During the first stage, which shall start in 1974 at the latest, the surveys need not include data relating to the variables shown in brackets. For the 1977 survey, covering the year 1976, and subsequently, Member States shall collect data relating to all the variables listed in the Annex. Data to be collected on undertakings employing from twenty to ninety-nine persons shall, however, cover only the variables concerning the number of persons employed, turnover, gross wages and salaries paid, and also purchases of raw materials, intermediate products and industrial services. As regards periodical surveys into undertakings employing fewer than twenty persons, the Commission shall, before the end of 1975, put forward proposals on the data to be collected. From the first survey onwards data on local units (enterprise) shall be collected in respect of the following variables: total number of persons employed other than home workers; gross salaries and wages paid out, including the amount paid to home workers on the payroll; total of investments in fixed capital. The information last referred to shall supplement the data by undertaking collected annually in respect of investments, in compliance with Council Directive No 64/475/EEC of 30 July 1964 .

With the exception of information subject to statistical secrecy under national law, the results of the surveys recorded in. accordance with a common schedule of tables and broken down by industrial activity corresponding to the three-digit NACE headings shall be forwarded annually to the Commission. The Commission shall, with the agreement of the Member States, determine the exceptions to the general rule governing break-down by industrial activity, the details relating to the presentation of results, including the break-down according to size of statistical unit, and the form in which results should be forwarded. Member States in which the collection and processing of data are based on a nomenclature of activities other than the NACE shall take all necessary measures to ensure that results expressed in their nomenclature shall be adequately transposed into the Community nomenclature.

Member States shall take all appropriate steps to reduce to a minimum the time taken in carrying out and processing the surveys, in order that the results may be available to the Commission as soon as possible.

The cost of carrying out these surveys in the Member States shall be borne by the national budgets.

This Directive is addressed to the Member States.