National Statistical Institute of Bulgaria

Annual Business Statistics and Business Registers Department

Bulgaria, Sofia, 1038, 2 P.Volov Str.

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.

Activity of unit

An economic activity takes place when resources such as capital goods, labour, manufacturing techniques or intermediary products are combined to produce specific goods or services. Thus, an economic activity is characterised by an input of resources, a production process and an output of products (goods or services).

Number of employees

Those persons who work for an employer and who have a contract of employment and receive compensation in the form of wages, salaries, fees, gratuities, piecework pay or remuneration in kind. The number of employees includes part-time workers, seasonal workers, persons on strike or on short-term leave, but excludes those persons on long-term leave. The number of employees does not include voluntary workers.

Number of employees and self -employed persons

The total number of persons who work in the observation unit (inclusive of working proprietors, partners working regularly in the unit and unpaid family workers), as well as persons who work outside the unit who belong to it and are paid by it (e.g. sales representatives). Includes persons absent for a short period (e.g. sick or paid leave), and also those on strike, but not those absent for an indefinite period. Includes part-time workers, seasonal workers, apprentices, and home workers on the payroll.

Net turnover

Net turnover of all income arising during the reference period

Total assets

Not aplicable

Principal activity

Economic activities are determined by reference to a specific level of the activity classification called NACE. The main economic activity is determined according to a relative share of net sales revenue.

If a statistical unit carries out more than one activity, all the activities which are not ancillary activities are ranked according to the gross value added at factor cost which they generate. A distinction is made between principal activity and secondary activities.

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 860 955 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 2749 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 7932 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 8240 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 7691 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 7691 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 651 groups data is sent to the EGR for processing. The file was send with 1 month of delay and the data is not included in the EGR Final Frame for 2022.

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

The reference area for EGR cycle is the territory of the country.

The EGR frames are available from reference year 2008 onwards. NSI transmits data for the EGR production cycle since 2014 year.

Not applicable

The economic variables on employment are recorded in absolute figures.

The net turnover for enterprises is recorded in BGN currency.

The net turnover and net total asset is recorded in millions in BGN currency.

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:

• The Law on Statistics ensures the protection of statistical confidentiality and the use of individual data of enterprises for statistical purposes only: 

Law on Statistics (Chapter Six, Art. 25).

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).

The individual data of enterprises are used only for statistical purposes.

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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:

• Other Member States for delineating the structure of multinational groups.
• National Central Bank (NCB)

Not applicable.

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

The quality of data for EGR cycle is monitored according the quality assurance procedure described in concept 11.

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: 

• Law on Statistics (Art.2 and Art.30)

• Guidelines on quality criteria in the National Statistical System of Bulgaria - Part II: “Guidelines for quality assessment in the National Statistical Institute (NSI)” - https://nsi.bg/sites/default/files/files/pages/Quality_e/1.4.%20GUIDELINES%20NSS_FINAL_EN.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

-       Internal – other statistical domains use EGR for derivation of populations for surveys;

-       External – EGR team provides non-confidential data to external users upon request.

Statistics authorities complete a questionnaire for SBR user survey.

The completeness of EGR data is annually assessed by Eurostat.

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 transmitted to EGR is timely and accurate. For cycle 2022, there was a delay in transmitting the GEG file.

We do not compare between geographic areas.

Since 2014, data on multinational groups in the business register can be compared with those from the EGR frame for the same year.

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

• For some characteristics of the EGR data, we use information from the FATS data.

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:

• We do not change the structure of multinational groups with EGR final frame.

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The main source of EGR data is the national statistical business register.

National data sent to EGR annually.

Data sent to EGR are collected from:

• National Statistical business register

Data validation procedures include:

•     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;

We have an algorithm and rules for constructing and reconstructing the structures of multinational groups and the relationships between members within them.

Not applicable.

No further comment.