Statistics Netherlands

Director of Business Registers: 

Rooijakkers, B.G. (Bastiaan)

Statistics Netherlands

t.av. HJ Konen

Postbus 4481

6401CZ Heerlen

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;
• 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.

Activity of unit

NACE Rev 2.1 derived from national classification of the activity (SBI) 

Number of employees

Source SBR = Statistics Emplyoment and Wages which are based on Social Security Administration  

Self-employed persons

Self-employed persons derived from the number of partners - only natural persons - in a partnership combined with inform ation about Sole Proprietors registered in the Trade Register 

Net turnover

Derived from statisical system used for STS: Direct Estimation Of Totals (Dutch = DRT)

Total assets

N.A.

Principal activity

NACE Rev 2.1 derived from national classification of the activity (SBI) 

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: groups data is sent to the EGR for processing.

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

More information: See link below:  

NL

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 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 2021 reference year. The identification, economic variables (number of employees, turnover and economic activity) refer to the reference year.

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:

Legal acts and other agreements - national level (Organisation (cbs.nl))

• The Statistics Netherlands Act constitutes the legal basis for CBS. In addition, CBS has Regulations of the board, as well as statutory provisions and acts regarding the provision of data 

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.

NSI exchanges information on multinational enterprise groups with:

• Internal users of the SBR
• National Central Bank (NCB)

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

ESS Data Quality Programme for statistical business registers is available on CIRCABC and Quality - Eurostat (europa.eu).

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: 

• According EGR methodology

• Quality declaration of Statistics Netherlands: https://www.cbs.nl/-/media/ccs-jaarverslagen/quality-declaration-of-statistics-netherlands-2014-01.pdf

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,
• corrections triggered by information received from the EGR(-team)

EGR is used as the main source to determine the UCI/GDC for FATS

Users complain about missing information in the EGR on completely identified relationships between Dutch Legal units and entities registered in countries outside the European Union.     

See EGR quality indicators.

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

• Improvements on the implementation of the EGR methodolgy in the Dutch Cross-Border Register
• Creation of a special EGR project group, since 2023. 

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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.

On time according the EGR-cycle

The geographical comparability of national statistical business registers is ensured by the application of common definitions of the statistical units laid down in the Council Regulation (EEC) No 696/93.

The SBR variables are harmonised and set up in accordance with the Annex VIII to the Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/1197 laying down technical specifications and arrangements pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 on European business statistics. Further guidelines on the variables implementation in the national statistical business registers are given in the EBS methodological manual for Statistical Business Registers (2021 edition).

The information about the GEG-structures in the EGR frame for reference year 2021 are hardly compared with the GEG-structures in previous EGR frames.   

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

The information in the EGR frame is used as the main source for FATS    

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:

The EGR-methodology is implemented in a special Statistical System, called the Cross Border Register. 

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See documentation in the annex: Collaboration SBR and EGR 

National data sent to EGR annually

Data sent to EGR are collected from:

• National Statistical business registers
• Administrative data sources.
• Survey Finances of Enterprise Groups (SFEG)

Data are checked and validated according the EGR-Methodolgy

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