Statistics Austria

Directorate Business Statistics

Statistik Austria

Guglgasse 13

1110 Wien

Austria

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. 2.1);
• 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

A statistical unit is considered to have been active during the reference period, if in said period it either realized positive net turnover or produced outputs or had employees or performed investments. 

A legal unit can be legally or administratively active without any economic activity, when the inactive legal unit is part of an enterprise in combination with economically active legal units. Holding assets and/or liabilities shall also be regarded as an economic activity.

Number of employees

The number of employees represents the average number of persons who were, at some time during the reference period, employees of the statistical unit.

Number of employees and self -employed persons

The number of employees and self-employed persons is the sum of the Number of employees and Number of self- employed persons. The number of self-employed persons is the average number of persons who were at some time during the reference period the sole owners or joint owners of the statistical unit in which they work. Family workers and outworkers whose income is a function of the value of the outputs of the statistical unit are also included.

Net turnover

For all activities except for NACE 64, 65 and some activities of NACE 66 net turnover consists of all income arising during the reference period in the course of ordinary activities of the statistical unit, and is presented net of all price reductions, discounts and rebates granted by it.

Income is defined as increases in economic benefits during the reference period in the form of inflows or enhancements of assets or decreases of liabilities that result in increases in equity, other than those relating to contributions from equity participants.

The inflows referred to are arising from contracts with customers and are realized through the satisfaction by the statistical unit of performance obligations as foreseen in said contracts. Usually, a performance obligation is represented by the sale (transfer) of goods or the rendering of services, however, the gross inflows can also contain revenues obtained as a yield on the use by others of the statistical unit’s assets.

Excluded from net turnover are:

—   all taxes, duties or levies linked directly to revenue;

—   any amounts collected on behalf of any principal, if the statistical unit is acting as an agent in its relationship with said principal; 

—   all income not arising in the course of ordinary activities of the statistical unit. Usually, these types of income are classified as ‘Other (operating) income’, ‘Financial income’, ‘Extra-ordinary income’ or under a similar heading, depending on the respective set of generally accepted accounting standards used to prepare the financial statements.

Infra-annual statistics may not be able to take into account aspects such as annual price reductions, subsidies, rebates and discounts.

For the activities of NACE K6411, K6419 and K649 net turnover is defined as the value of output minus subsidies or government grants.

For the activities of NACE K642 and K643 net turnover can be approximated by the total operating costs, if net turnover is not available in the financial statements.

For the activities of NACE K6511, K6512 and K652 net turnover is defined as Gross premiums earned.

For the activities of NACE K653 the net turnover is defined as total pension contributions

For activities of NACE K66 for which net turnover is not available in the financial statements, net turnover is defined as the value of output minus subsidies or government grants. For activities of NACE K66 for which net turnover is available in the financial statements, the standard definition of net turnover applies. 

Principal activity

The principal (or main) activity is the activity that contributes most to the total value added of a unit under consideration. Ideally, the principal activity of the unit should be determined with reference to the value added to the goods and services produced, by applying the top-down method. The top-down method follows a hierarchical principle: the classification of the unit at the lowest level of the classification must be consistent with the classification of the unit at higher levels. The principal activity so identified does not necessarily account for 50 % or more of the unit’s total value added.

In the European Union the classification of principal activity is determined by reference to NACE Rev. 2, first at the highest level of classification and then at more detailed levels (top-down method).

Secondary activity

A secondary activity is each separate activity that produces products eventually for third parties and that is not the principal activity. The outputs of secondary activities are secondary products.

More information on statistical concepts and definitions relevant to the statistical business registers could be found in the EBS methodological manual for Statistical Business Registers (2021 edition).

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 332313 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 7531 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 34644 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 31417 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 16708 enterprises made of legal unit sent in LEU files is sent to EGR for processing.
The file consists of ENTs which are economically active which means it consists of at least one employee or a yearly VAT of at least 500€ or an average advance turnover tax return of 150€ per quarter or an average advance turnover tax return of 50€ per month.

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

LEL file including 30181 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 24 groups data is sent to the EGR for processing.

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

via GEG file:

• GEG_UCI_RCC

via EGR IM:

• GEG_NAME
• GEG_GDC_LEID
• GEG_NACE_CODE_DIV

Austria

For version EGR 1.0 data is available since 2008. For version EGR 2.0 data is available since 2014.

Not applicable

The economic variables on employment are recorded in absolute figures.

The net turnover for enterprises is recorded in absolute numbers 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 2022 cycle includes data for the 2022 reference year. The identification, economic variables (number of employees, turnover and economic activity) refer to the 2022 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:

• Bundesstatistikgesetz 2000 
• https://www.ris.bka.gv.at/GeltendeFassung.wxe?Abfrage=Bundesnormen&Gesetzesnummer=10006095

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 statistical users get access to the SBR frames or receive required data in the following way:

• Web-GUI
• Database Views: a subset of the database based on defined queries
• Customized queries for analysis or survey populations

The final frame for a reference year T is available on annual bases in T+ 15 months. The annual copy is kept for 30 years for the purpose of analysis.

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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:

• National Central Bank (NCB) for the purposes of the European framework for statistical business registers in order to ensure the quality of multinational enterprise group information in the European Union.
• Web-Gui: internal Users can obtain micro data on specific units via a Web-Graphical user interface
• Database Views: internal users can access the Views via specific programming software which provides a database connection
• Customized queries for analysis or survey populations: internal users can request specific data via a ticket system, which is then provided as a CSV or EXCEL File

Each internal user must be specifically authorized for each of the above options individually.

Anonymised micro-data are provided to researchers via secured environment according to the procedure for dissemination of confidential data for scientific purposes.

• The Austrian Micro Data center has been in operation since 1st of July 2022 where data from the national statistical business register can be provided to researchers.

Not applicable.

• EuroGroups Register communication space ( EGR wiki with restricted access)
• European business statistics methodological manual for statistical business registers – edition 2021 outlines the methodology to be used for the national statistical institutes.
• URS Standarddocumentation

URS Standarddocumentation

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:

• Legislation concerning quality assurance: Bundesstatistikgesetz 2020
• Task Forces or Working groups etc.
• Methodological standards and guidelines assuring the quality of the production process and the output
• Data validation procedures in place: each data has to be valid, considerably quality monitoring of input and output data
• Quality assessment activities undertaken (e.g. checks on completeness, checks of various NACE-areas, ongoing quality monitoring

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,
• main strengths and weaknesses according to the standard quality criteria: ongoing quality monitoring.

EGR is important for the compilation of consistent and comparable multinational groups, establishing efficient statistical survey frames, providing identification numbers of all the units and for linking to many different sources, increasing statistical information and reducing the reporting burden on enterprises groups.

Since 2017, Eurostat together with the EU Member States conducts SBR user survey addressing users and potential users of the national statistical business registers (NSBR) and the EuroGroups Register (EGR).

The latest SBR User Survey 2023 show that the NSBR are widely used at national level and users consider that its quality had been significantly improved in the recent years. 

The results of the SBR User Survey 2023 are available on CIRCABC.

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

• The classification notification system allows companies to report directly to Statistics Austria if they feel that the classificatory assignment is inappropriate.
• Continous exchange of information with the administrative data sources is a key part to improve data quality.
• Results of the analysis of the DataQualityProgram are used to improve data accuracy.
• A ticket system is used to coordinate upcoming work with IT on a weekly basis and, above all, to document it.
• An internal monitoring process has been implemented to ensure an overview of changes in the register and ongoing control of the register masses. This is achieved in particular by means of regular register-internal special evaluations and reports.
• There is a regular exchange with IT and other departments or users in the form of a Jour Fixe.
• Employees in the area of the EGR regularly take part in training courses and the working documents are constantly updated.
• There is a close exchange with the classification department in order to keep the quality of different classification features in the register high.
• EGR staff are part of the in-house MNE Board, which aims to improve the consistency and coherence of multinational enterprise data.

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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 EGR Final Frame is transmitted by March T+15 by Eurostat.

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 comparability over time of the frames results from the information provided in concept 3.8.

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

EGR-FATS quality indicators:

• Completeness of EGR: 0.63
• Accuracy of UCI in EGR: 0.83
• Completeness of EGR final frame on employment: 0.87
• Completeness of IFATS from EGR final frame perspective: 0.77
• Completeness of EGR final frame UCIs: 0.96

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 transmitted data is based on our SBR data which is internally consistent.

Reg. (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics stipulates cost effectiveness as statistical principle; however, there is no legal obligation to provide cost and burden information in quality reports. Such an obligation is also not covered by sectoral legislation. Due to the fact that consistent  standards and definitions for cost reportingare currently not available and are yet to be developed by the RDG-expert groupthere is a high risk of misrepresentationand distortions when comparing costs of statistics production across countries. Statistics Austria will, hence, not provide any cost information until  agreed harmonised reporting standards are in place.

There is no publication/dissemination of data from the EGR. For this reason, there is also no data revision in the conventional sense. 

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We use the following data sources, including a combination thereof for the transmitted data:

• Austrian business register for administrative purposes
• Company register
• Aassociations register
• Tax information System
• Social security register
• Economic Chamber
• Statistical Surveys

National data sent to EGR annually

Data sent to EGR are collected from:

• National Statistical business registers
• Administrative data sources.
• For more details please see 18.1.

Data validation procedures include:

• Format and file structure checks
• Intra-file checks
• Intra-domain, inter-source checks (e.g. mirror checks)
• Plausibility/consistency checks between domains inside the NSI
• Plausibility/consistency checks between domains outside the NSI
• Checks for inconsistencies in data delivery files

The procedures used to combine data from different sources:

• The austrian Administrative Business Register is used as the main data source
• Additional information and data from other sources is processed via certain priority rules

Not applicable.

No further comments.