National Statistics Office (NSO)

Business Register, Reseach and Innovation Unit

Lascaris Wharf, Valletta

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

This refers to all the type of work carried out by the unit, that generates economic revenue. It involves recording a description of all the goods or services produced by the unit. There may be more than one activity.

Number of employees

The number of employees is the number of persons who were for the employer in the unit (excluding working owners).

Number of employees and self-employed persons
This is the total number of persons who work in the unit

Net turnover

This is the net sales revenue generated by the unit.

Principal activity

The principal activity of a unit is the activity that generates most value added and is coded using NACE Rev.2 classification.

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.

ISRLE file: The data set with information on all incorporated resident legal units for the EGR Identification Service. This includes the full population of incorporated resident legal units and is sent to EGR for identification.

ISNORLE file: The data set with information on foreign legal units for the EGR Identification Service. This includes the population of foreign legal unit recorded in national statistical business register either as parents or as subsidiaries iand s sent to EGR for identification.

LEU file: The data set with information on legal units. This includes information of all the resident legal unit belonging to a global enterprise group is sent to EGR for processing.

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

This includes 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.

Relationships in the REL are:

• control relationships (>50%)
• minority relationships (<50% and >10%)

ENT file: The data set with information on enterprises. This includes information on all the enterprises that are made of the legal units sent in LEU file sent to EGR for processing.

LEL file: The data set with information on links between enterprises and legal units. It includes information about which legal units (LEU) are enterprised (ENT) made of. The links may be one-to-one or one-to-many. 

GEG file: The data set with information on enterprise groups of which country is the GDC country for the EuroGroups Register.

 This includes groups data sent to the EGR for processing. The groups’ variables which are updated after receiving the preliminary frame are:

• The country code of the UCI in cases where on the top of the group there is a natural person or a legal unit whose LEID was not found in the EGR IS (mainly, non-EU & EFTA countries) 

The entire territory of the country and any other country were affiliates are present.

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

Not applicable

The economic variables on employment are recorded in absolute figures.

The net turnover for enterprises is recorded in nominal values 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 (employment, 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).

National Legislation:

Malta Statistics Authority Act

The NSO's policy of dissemination which caters for the anonymisation of microdata can be found here:

• Dissemination Policy

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).

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

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 Units within NSO.
• National Central Bank (NCB)
• Other member states when they have at least one legal unit in their country within the group 

Not applicable.

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

Not available

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 through: 

• Established procedure of checking data across domains and sources
• Sending queries to data providers and taking onboard feedback from users
• Manual checks
• validation functions within the application used for compilation of the nSBR.

 The EGR is validated thoroughly by Eurostat, before and after transmission of data.

The quality assessment procedure includes check on data format and logical content of data.

The EGR is rountinely used by OFATS, IFATS, NA and BOP for information updates and checks.

Eurostat together with the EU Member States conducts SBR user survey addressing users the nSBR and the EGR. The latest SBR User Survey 2020 show that the NSBR are widely used at national level and users consider that its quality had been significantly improved in the recent years.Most of the NSBR users had either no issue or manageable issue regarding business registers coverage, units, variables, timeliness and frequency of frames. The results of the SBR User Survey 2020 are available on CIRCABC.

All available information is passed on the EGR is considered to be complete.

The overall level of accuracy in the data sent to the EGR, as in the nSBR which is the source used to compile the EGR is quite high. The administrative sources used to capture all incorporated legal units and their relationships are very robust and ensure complete coverage. Any inaccuracies in the NACE code recorded in the nSBR are addressed by the time the data is sent to the EGR. Some inaccuracies may occur in the identification of foreign legal units caused by the difference in language for business names and/ or untimely updates of changes in addresses and names. But these are minor in quantity and are usually corrected in repair phase of EGR.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

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.

All data is sent within the deadlines stipulated.

The EGR data is geographically comparable.

Generally, the EGR datasets are comparable over time, with no major break-in-series occuring in any time period. However in 2015, grant-financed work in the compilation of group structures was carried out in the nSBR which significantly improved the links and coverage thereon. The compilation process of the statistical unit 'Enterprise' has also undergone several improvements along the years with the most notable one being in the cycle of 2022 when a more elaborate automatic algorithm was devised for the calculation of the statistical unit enterprise.

The nSBR which is the source used to compile the EGR is also the source used for co-ordinated frame populatios used across domains thus ensuring coherence.

The nSBR data which is used to compile the EGR is interally coherent.

Not available.

Not applicable

Not applicable

The variables of the EGR are populated from data used in the nSBR obtained from the following data sources:

1. Administrative data sources
2. Surveys conducted by NSO

National data sent to EGR annually

Data sent to EGR are collected from:

• National Statistical business registers
• Administrative data sources.

The data collected for  the national Statistical Business Register which is used for the compilatio of the EGR is validated by:

• inbuilt checks within the SBR application
• cross checks between the different data sources
• feedback from respondents when data is unclear

The files sent to the EGR are pre-validated in Edamis before the official transmission. 

The EGR is compiled in SDMX-CSV format using data in the national statistical business register.

Not applicable.

None