Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic

Department of Registers and Classifications

Directorate of General Methodology, Registers and Coordination of National Statistical System

Lamačská cesta 3/C

840 05 Bratislava

Slovak Republic

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 activity can be said to take place when resources such as equipment, labour, manufacturing techniques, information networks or products are combined, leading to the creation of specific goods or services. An activity is characterised by an input of products (goods and services), a production process and an output of products. Activities can be determined by reference to a specific level of NACE.

Number of employees

The number of employees represents the average number of person 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-emloyed 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.

Total assets

Total assets are defined as the assets owned by the entity that has an economic value whose benefits can be derived in the future.

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).

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 EGR target population is the Multinational enterprise groups (MNE) having at least two legal units out of which at least one is located in EU Member States or EFTA countruies, their Legal units, and Enterprises.

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 (EGR IS).

ISRLE file including full population of resident legal units is sent to EGR IS for identification. All incorporated resident legal units, belonging to all-resident enterprise groups

and also legal units that do not belong to any enterprise group should be part of the data to be identified in EGR IS.

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

ISNORLE file including population of foreign legal unit recorded in national statistical business register is sent to EGR IS for identification. In the data exchange NSIs should

create and send file(s) to EGR IS on foreign legal units which are linked to the national FATS populations (inward and outward). These are foreign legal units which are

parents or subsidiaries of the resident legal units being part of multinational enterprise groups.

 The data set with information on legal units.

LEU file including resident legal units which are part of MNE groups is sent to EGR for processing:

 -      all resident legal units belonging to foreign multinational groups,

-      resident legal units belonging to foreign multinational groups should be sent also in those cases, where their parents were not identified,

-      all resident legal units belonging to multinational groups with GGH in the country.

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

REL file including relationships of the legal units in the LEU file is sent to EGR for processing. These relationships can be:

 -      relationships between two resident legal units,

-      relationships between one resident and one foreign legal unit,

-      relationships between 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 characteristics of the enterprises of the resident legal units in the LEU file is sent to EGR for processing. 

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

LEL file including links between enterprise ( ENT ) and legal units ( LEU ) is sent to EGR for processing. Conceptually an enterprise can be:

 -      equal to one legal unit (one-to-one relation);

-      combination of legal units (one-to-many relation).

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

GEG file including groups data is sent to the EGR for processing. These are all groups, where at least one legal unit of the group is from the local country for the

open reference year. This list includes MNE groups, foreign controlled (FC) groups, and domestic groups, as well as unlinked resident legal units.

The groups variables are updated after receiving the preliminary frame : GEG_NAME, GEG_NACE_CODE_DIV, GEG_PERS_EMPL, GEG_PERS_EMPL_STA,

GEG_TURNOV, GEG_TURNOV_STA, GEG_TURNOV_CUR_CODE, GEG_T_ASSET, GEG_T_ASSET_STA, GEG_T_ASSET_CUR_CODE, GEG_WEB, GEG_DESCR,

GEG_UCI_RCC.

The reference area for national statistical business register is the territory of the country. Concerning enterprise groups any country outside the national territory may be relevant.

Country codes for Enterprise groups are specified in ISO 3166 country code classification.

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

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The economic variables on employment are recorded in absolute figures.

The net turnover for enterprises is recorded in EUR currency.

The net turnover and net total asset for enterprise groups is recorded in millions in EUR currency, respectively the corresponding currency code is indicated.

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:

• Act No. 540/2001 on State statistics
• Act No. 18/2018 Personal data protection
• Internal regulation - Directive on Statistical Confidentiality SME-10/2023
• Methodological Instruction - Protection of confidential statistical data  MET-7/2023

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:

• Other Member States for purpose to ensure quality of the MNE information.
• National Central Bank (NCB) for purpose to ensure the quality of the FDI.

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• EuroGroups Register communication space (EGR wiki with restricted access)
• European business statistics compilers’ manual for EuroGroups register (EGR) – 2024 edition - Eurostat (europa.eu)
• European business statistics methodological manual for statistical business registers – edition 2021
• The European business profiling Recommendation Manual - edition 2020
• European Profiling (IPT wiki with restricted access)

Public available information on the EGR, its data, methodology, quality management is available on the Eurostat website. 

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

EGR producers in the NSIs and statistical users in the NSIs and NCBs find more detailed information on EGR process, methodology, quality indicators can consult on EGR wiki (restricted access).

ESS Standard for Quality Reports - Products Manuals and Guidelines - 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.

The quality of the data files sent by NSI is validated by:

• Business register staff in NSI, which must validate data files before sending them to Eurostat, according to the provided validation rules;
• Automatic validation of the files, which are handled by the the platform EDAMIS use by the NSI to send their files to EGR.

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

•  Legislation concerning quality assurance, Task Forces or Working Groups, etc.

            - Basic documents: Code of Practice, ISO 9001:2015,

            - State of commissioner of the quality of the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic,

            - Quality declaration.

• Methodological standards and guidelines assuring the quality of the production process and the output

            - Directive - The value creating process for statistical production,

            - Methodology for data collection and processing.

• Data validation procedures in place

            - Directive for Register Administration.

• Quality assessment activities undertaken

            - Report on the quality evaluation.

All documents are accessible via Intranet.

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,
• set of 4 quality indicators monitoring:
  • the punctuality,
  • the completeness,
  • the accurancy and reliability,
  • the coherence and comparability,
• the throughput indicators or key process indicators (KPI), which monitor data on legal units, relationships, enterprises and enterprise groups and measure the changes of these source data.

The EGR provides harmonised information on multinational enterprise groups and their enterprises in the EU and EFTA countries. The statistical users can use EGR coordinated frame populations to derive consistent statistical output with an improved quality in measuring global activities of European enterprises that are part of multinational enterprise groups. Multinational enterprise groups information is used for statistics related to globalisation, such as Statistics on foreign affiliates (FATS), Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), Gross National Income (GNI), etc.

The EGR country specific frames are used as a basis for European profiling of the largest and most complex multinational enterprise groups in the EU. EGR information may also be used for quality checks, as a secondary source or for deriving statistics on multinational enterprise groups, etc.

In 2017, Eurostat conducted first SBR user consultation survey addressing users and potential users of the national statistical business registers (NSBR) and the EuroGroups Register (EGR).

The second SBR user survey was opened for contributions by statistical users between November 2019 and March 2020. The 2020 SBR survey results show that the EGR is widely used and users consider that its quality had been significantly improved in the recent years. The EGR data are used mostly in Economic globalisation domain (35%) and Economy and finance (25%). Most of the respondents (71%) stated that they currently use EGR data for the production of official statistics at national level.

The third SBR user survey was opened for contributions by statistical users between March 2023 and April 2023. Eurostat received 415 questionnaires from 33 countries, mostly (87,5%) from National Statistical Institues. 82,5% of the NSBR users use it as an authoritative source.

The results of the SBR User Surveys are available on CIRCABC.

The completeness of EGR final frame is annually assessed by Eurostat.

The EGR assessment results are provided to EU Member States and EFTA countries and presented at the Statistical Business Registers Working Group (SBR WG).

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

• close cooperation with NSA from another Member States regarding cross-border relationships;
• sending information about the assigned code of main economic activity to electronic mailboxes of legal units

The accuracy of the EGR final frame is evaluated in collaboration between NSIs and Eurostat. The NSI compare, at micro-level, the Ultimate Controlling Institutional units (UCIs) of the Multinational enterprise groups from the EGR final frame with their data from FATS surveys.

Eurostat complies the results of the comparison results sent by the NSI the second half of the year after FATS data for the same reference year is released.

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The EGR final frame is produced and released to its users at T+15 months.

 The EGR final frame is delivered on time without delays.

EGR frame allows geographical comparability of information on MNE groups provided by countries.

The units provided by countries are based on harmonised statistical units defined in Council Regulation (EEC) No 696/93 and the MNE groups information is comparable across the countries.

EGR frames for reference years 2008 to 2011 are comparable as the process was based on the EGR system version 1.0 by using commercial data as basis.

EGR frames for reference years 2012 and 2013 are comparable as were produced during the transition from EGR system version 1.0 to EGR system version 2.0. The input process was based on system version 2.0; the throughput and output processes are based on system version 1.0. Data basis were national statistical business registers of EU MSs and EFTA countries.

The EGR frame for reference year 2014 is the first frame produced in EGR system version 2.0. From EGR frame 2015 onwards, the annual frames are comparable to the previous/following EGR frames.

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

• legal units,
• enterprises,
• relationships netween legal units,
• multinational enterprise groups.

The EGR frame provides harmonised information on the multinational enterprise groups active in the EU MSs and EFTA countries.

Statistical users can use EGR as a coordinated frame population in order to derive consistent statistical output, with an improved quality in measuring global activities of European enterprises that are part of multinational enterprise groups.

The internal coherence within the EGR frame is largely depending on the quality of NSBRs.

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:

• logical checks,
  
• BR internall checks.
  

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The sources for the EGR 2021 frame are:

• National statistical business registers 
• Commercial data source
• Annual reports
• Web sites

National data sent to EGR annually.

Data sent to EGR are collected from:

• National Statistical business registers
• Administrative data sources
• annual reports, websites
  
• commercial data provider

The EGR process started in April (T+4 months with respect to reference data) with gathering data on resident legal units from the national statistical business registers and updating the EGR Identification Service (EGR IS) for reference date T (31 December).

The second action of the EGR process was the delivery of non-resident legal units for identification to the EGR Identification Service (EGR IS) for reference date T (31/12) of the corresponding reference year. This action is performed continuously in the period of July to October (T+7 to T+10 months with respect to reference year) and regards the identification of the foreign legal units of the national business registers in the EGR IS. The EGR IS appends a LEID number to each EU and EFTA resident and non-resident legal unit identified. The LEID number is the unique identifier, which facilitates the later stages of the EGR process.

The third action was the sending of information on enterprises, legal units and their direct and indirect, control and non-control relationships to the EGR CORE by the national statistical business registers starting in October to middle of November (T+10 to T+11 months with respect to reference data). Data sets should contain the full coverage, also include the properly identified foreign parents/subsidiaries and variables requested by the Regulation (EC) no 2009/192.

The fourth action was repair of the relationships and update of enterprise data that was performed from December to middle of March (T+12 to T+15 months with respect to reference data) either via input files or within the EGR Interactive Module. At the same time, the enterprise group data delivery was taking place.

After the process of consolidation and any necessary repair actions to the multinational enterprise group structures, the EGR produced the final frame. The groups are delivered to users after requesting for national populations data via the EGR FATS on-line interface that is placed in the secure environment, starting from the end of March (T+15 months with respect to the reference year).

The EGR data validation process takes place continuously during EGR production process in between T+5 and T+15 months.

The Slovak statistical institute contribute to the validation process at the group structures’ in repair phase by delivering relationships and data on enterprise groups to the EGR and also by pre-validate the EGR input file. 

The EGR data compilation creates the enterprise groups structures by using the information on direct shareholdings and control between pair-wise legal units.

An algorithm in the EGR CORE reconstructs the full chain of direct and indirect relationships.

Truncated groups and the domestic control relationships from NSIs that are full authentic store sources are used as a basis for the consolidation of groups.

Commercial data are used only for legal units outside the EU and EFTA countries and for those NSIs not being full authentic store sources for the EGR.

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All modules of the EGR system version 2.0 are in production since 2015.

There is a continuous improvement of the SBR system and production process aiming to ensure the output quality.