Europese Commissie formuleert voorstellen voor EU-migratiestatistieken (en)

The development of common immigration and asylum policies has in recent years increased the need for EU-wide comprehensive and comparable migratory statistics. To this effect, the Commission has today tabled a proposal for a Regulation on Community statistics on migration and international protection.

The Regulation will improve the statistical knowledge of migration-related phenomena by specifying the data to be collected, the timetables to be applied, the definitions and the quality standards. The following statistics will be covered by the Regulation: international migration, usually resident population, acquisition of citizenship, international protection (including asylum), residence permits, returns and measures related to the prevention of illegal entry and stay.

The Vice-President of the Commission, Franco Frattini i, underlined the importance of this proposal for the development of the common immigration and asylum policies: "Sound policies must be based on reliable data. Our knowledge of the migratory situation in the European Union is now fragmented and incomplete. The collection of EU-wide statistics in this area will significantly improve our ability to concentrate our efforts where they are most needed"

Although Eurostat has collected statistics on migration and asylum from Member States for some years under informal arrangements, there has been so far no comprehensive legal basis ensuring comparable statistical data at EU level. This proposal for a Regulation provides clarity and legal certainty as to the statistics to be produced. It covers all of the current Eurostat statistical collections on migration, asylum and illegal entry, as well as new data related to residence permits.

The present proposal is a follow-up of the European Commission's 2003 Action Plan for the collection and analysis of Community Statistics in the field of migration (COM (2003) 179). It has been prepared under the joint responsibility of Eurostat and the Directorate General for Freedom, Security and Justice. The proposed legislation, to be adopted by co-decision of the European Parliament and the Council, takes the form of a framework regulation. Implementing regulations will be presented at a later stage to define matters such as the exact statistical definitions to be applied.