Belgian statistical office (Statbel)

Statiscal Business Register

Antonio Fiordaliso, Rue du Progrès 50 – 1210 Bruxelles, Belgium

Nicolas De Cock, Rue du Progrès 50 – 1210 Bruxelles, Belgium

The EuroGroups register (EGR) is the statistical business register of Eurostat and the EU Member States and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries for multinational enterprise groups. The purpose of the EGR is to offer to statistical users a tool for coordinating frame population, to derive consistent statistical output with an improved quality in measuring global activities of European enterprises part of multinational enterprise groups.

The EGR produces data in yearly cycles and covers microdata on the groups and their enterprises and legal units. The EGR aims to register all multinational enterprise groups that have enterprises in EU Member States or EFTA countries, including European and non-European groups.

The Member States, EFTA countries and Eurostat exchange data on multinational enterprise groups and on the units belonging to those groups for the purposes of the European framework for statistical business registers to ensure the quality of the multinational enterprise group’s information in the Union.

The EGR brings together microdata on multinational enterprise groups from the EU and the EFTA countries' national statistical institutes, in line with the requirements of the Regulation (EU) No 2152/2019, and from a commercial data source for data outside the EU and EFTA.

Classification systems and main code lists used in the EGR are as follows:

• Statistical classification of economic activities in the European Community (NACE Rev. 2);
• European System of Accounts (ESA 2010);
• List of 2-digit country codes (ISO 3166-1);
• List of legal forms of the legal units;
• Currency codes (ISO 4217).

The coverage of the data transmitted to the EGR is defined in the Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 on European business statistics.

For the purposes of the European framework for statistical business registers, the following economic activities are considered:

• any activity comprising the offer of goods and services on a given market;
• non-market services contributing to the GDP;
• direct and indirect holdings of active legal units.

Holding assets and/or liabilities are also considered an economic activity.

Global group head

The global group head (GGH) of an enterprise group is the parent legal unit that is not controlled either directly or indirectly by any other legal unit. The subsidiary legal units of a subsidiary legal unit are considered to be subsidiaries of the parent legal unit.

Global decision centre

The global decision centre (GDC) of an enterprise group is the unit where the enterprise group level’s strategic decisions are taken. A group may have several decision-making centres or several units dedicated to a particular internal function, for example accounting or human resources. However, the decisions about the group are made only in the GDC. The GDC may be the GGH or another legal unit under the GGH.

Ultimate Controlling Institutional unit

The ultimate controlling institutional unit (UCI) of a foreign affiliate means the institutional unit higher up a foreign affiliate’s chain of control that is not controlled by another institutional unit.

The statistical units maintained in the EGR are defined in accordance with the Regulation (EEC) No 696/93 on the statistical units for the observation and analysis of the production system in the Community.

The EGR frame contains the following units: Legal units, Enterprises and Multinational enterprise groups.

Legal units include:

- legal persons whose existence is recognized by law independently of the individuals or institutions which may own them or are members of them,

- natural persons who are engaged in an economic activity in their own right.

The legal unit always forms, either by itself or sometimes in combination with other legal units, the legal basis for the statistical unit known as the 'enterprise'.

Enterprise

The enterprise is the smallest combination of legal units that is an organizational unit producing goods or services, which benefits from a certain degree of autonomy in decision-making, especially for the allocation of its current resources. An enterprise carries out one or more activities at one or more locations. An enterprise may be a sole legal unit.

Multinational enterprise group

A multinational enterprise group is an enterprise group that has at least two enterprises or legal units located in different countries.  In business statistics also term ‘global enterprise group’ is used.

The data transmitted to the EGR during the cycle is made of the following datasets.

The data set with information on all incorporated resident legal units for the EGR Identification Service.

ISRLE file includes full population of resident legal units is sent to EGR for identification.

The data set with information on foreign legal units for the EGR Identification Service.

ISNORLE file including full population of foreign legal unit recorded in national statistical business register is sent to EGR for identification.

The data set with information on legal units.

LEU file including full population of resident legal unit belonging to a global enterprise group is sent to EGR for processing.

The data set with information on relationships of ownership and control.

REL file including all known relationships between legal units is sent to EGR for processing:

• two resident legal units
• one resident and one foreign legal unit
• two foreign legal units from non EU+EFTA countries.

Relationships in the REL are:

• control relationships (>50%)
• minority relationships (<50%)

The data set with information on enterprises.

ENT file including full population enterprises made of legal unit sent in LEU files is sent to EGR for processing.

The Data set with information on links between enterprises and legal units.

LEL file including all links between enterprise (ENT) and legal units (LEU) is sent to EGR for processing.

The Data set with information on enterprise groups of which country is the GDC country for the EuroGroups Register.

GEG file including largest national groups data is sent to the EGR for processing.

The groups’ variables are updated after receiving the preliminary frame:

• Employement
• Turnover

Belgium

The EGR frames are available from reference year 2008 onwards. NSI transmits data for the EGR production cycle since 2008.

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The economic variables on employment are recorded in absolute figures.

The net turnover for enterprises is recorded in Euro.

The net turnover and net total asset of global enterprise group is recorded in millions in Euro.

The reference period for data sent to the EGR reflects the picture of 31 December of the given reference year.

Data transmitted to EGR during the EGR 2021 cycle includes data for the 31 December 2021. The identification, economic variables (number of employees, turnover and economic activity) refer to the year 2021.

The content of the national data sent to EGR is defined according the Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 on European business statistics.

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/1197 of 30 July 2020 is laying down the technical specifications and arrangements pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics.

The legal framework setting up the procedures for EGR data exchanges and access to confidential data for the purpose of the European framework for statistical business registers are defined in the Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 on European business statistics (Art.10). 

European legislation:

• Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics;
• Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 on European business statistics (Art.10).

The national legislative measures or other formal procedures which prevent unauthorised disclosure of data that identify a person or economic entity either directly or indirectly include:

• Regulation on public statistics

EGR data are stored by the Commission (Eurostat) and by the national statistical authorities (NSAs) in the EU Member States and EFTA countries in a secure area with restricted and controlled access.

The transmission of the EGR data is done in an encrypted form and by electronic means via the Commission (Eurostat) single entry point for exchange of confidential data eDamis

Rules applied for treating the data set to ensure statistical confidentiality and prevent unauthorised disclosure are defined according to the policy rules (see section 7.1).

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The micro-data exchange of confidential data on multinational enterprise groups and on the statistical units belonging to those groups takes place, exclusively for statistical purposes, between EU Member States and EFTA countries and the European Commission (Eurostat).

Where such exchange of confidential data is carried out to ensure the quality of the multinational enterprise groups information in the Union and the exchange is explicitly authorised by the competent NSA which provides the data, national central banks may be party to the exchange of confidential data, exclusively for statistical purposes.

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• EuroGroups Register communication space ( EGR wiki with restricted access)
• European business statistics methodological manual for statistical business registers – edition 2021

There is not yet documentation on procedures applied for quality management and quality assessment. However, the check and controls realized are detailed on the section 11. Quality Management.

Eurostat Data Quality Programme monitors the quality and compliance of the data transmitted by the countries to EGR using the instruments of the EBS quality framework.

At national level, the quality of the data sent to EGR is assured as follows: 

• A continous control of the quality of administrative sources used for the creation of EGR data;
• Monitoring and optimization of human ressource (ranking of raw data to be treated, set up of a global planning in order to assure work continuity)

The quality assessment procedure includes:

• automatic validation procedures to check coherence between statistical units and their variables,
• data format and logical content of data
• crosschecks with other sources and data from previous years

• Structual Business Statistics: group perimeter
• FATS: group perimeter, group head 
• Large Case Units: group perimeter
• Global value chain: group perimeter
• Profiling: group perimeter
• Trade by Enterprise Characteristics: group perimeter, group type 

EGR users satisfaction is assessed by surveys conducted ESTAT.

All statistics that are needed are available

The actions taken to monitor and to improve accuracy of the data sent to EGR are the following: 

• automatic validation procedures to check coherence between statistical units and their variables
• data format and logical content of data
• crosschecks with other sources and data from previous years

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The EGR process refers to a reference year T and is run yearly over a period of 11 months, between May T+1 and March T+2.

The data have been sent on time.

The data are constructed using the national business register which cover all Belgium and there is no differences in term business register between the different belgian areas. 

The EGR data cover for legal units located oustide EU+EFTA may fluctuate from one year to an other then it can induces change on group structure/characteristics over time.

Coherence of data sent to Eurostat with other data sources and statistical domains:

• TEC, JVC are build using EGR data therefore, there is coherence between these statistics and EGR
• Integration of EGR data in the FATS process is an on going process

Data sent to EGR should be internally consistent. There is a set of standard quality checks that are routinely perform at national level before transmitting the data to Eurostat:

• automatic validation procedures to check consistent of statistical units and their variables

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The raw data sources are:

- Annual accounts

- Central bank (FDI, ownership, financial flows)

- Annual reports

- National business register (BCE/KBO)

- VAT declaration

- Social security data

The raw data sources are:

- Annual accounts (Daily)

- Central bank (FDI, ownership, financial flows) (Annual)

- Annual reports (Annual)

- National business register (BCE/KBO) (Daily)

- VAT declaration (Weekly)

- Social security data (Quaterly)

Data sent to EGR are collected from:

• National Statistical business registers;
• Administrative data sources;
• National group registers.

During the data compilation there are several checks on the data quality:

- Check that the struval/conval rules are respected;

- Detection of cycle (n>1) in the group structure;

- Check of ownership links coherence (multiple parents);

- Comparison of group structure from T to T-1;

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