NUTS The European Classification of Regions Torbioern.Carlquist@cec.eu.int

Structure of my talk Short history Main features of the NUTS Regulation What changes compared to the 1999 version Consequences for data suppliers

Chapter 1 History

NUTS in the last 3 decades Over 25 years in use, without legal base but since 10 years base of Structural Funds Regulation entered into force 11 July 2003 Favours institutional breakdowns (primarily administrative divisions in force) i.e. no functional regions Hierarchical nomenclature with three (five) levels

Structure of NUTS 2003 (1999)

Content of the Regulation Chapter 2 Content of the Regulation

Objectives Binding regional breakdown for all statistics Assure comparability of regional statistics Fix (more or less) the current state of the NUTS in the MS Set-up objective criteria for the definition of regions Define clear rules for future amendments Stability of the classification over time In the interest of the users

Territorial unit Economic territory of EU 3 levels of NUTS Hierarchy Code length gives the level Trailing zeros GR3 Attiki (level 1) GR30 Attiki (level 2) GR300 Attiki (level 3)

Administrative unit General purpose regional administration Budget, personnel Several or many policy fields Annex II of NUTS Regulation Different rules for adm. units and non-adm. unit

Population thresholds

Changes to regions 3-year moratorium 1% - rule in terms of population Member States inform Eurostat about changes Committology procedure

Evolution over time

Statistical time series Member States have to re-transmit tables after change of NUTS Length of time series depends on domain Regional demography 1990- Regional accounts 1995- Regional tourism 1996-

Management of NUTS Eurostat unit E4 Co-operation with NSIs RESCO network Working Group “Regional statistics”

Time table Eurostat 2004 Jan. - Publish lists of LAU by NUTS 2005 July - Report on NUTS level 4 2006 July - Report in implementation of NUTS Regulation

Time table NSI:s 2003 Nov. - Send lists of LAU by NUTS 2004 June - Send report on changes in 2003 2005 June - Send report on changes in 2004 2005 July - Re-transmit statistical data for the regions newly created in 2003 (DE, ES, IT, PT, FI) 2006 June - Send report on changes in 2005 ESTAT-NUTS@cec.eu.int

Chapter 3 The changes 2003

Changes compared to 1999 Target = minimise changes in the interest of the users For 10 countries, no territorial changes at all For the other 5 countries, the territorial changes are rather small General change: all regions have a unique code for each level a code for extra-regional data was added

Which countries change Germany NUTS level 2 (only Brandenburg) and level 3 (2 mergers) Italy NUTS level 1 and level 2 (one split) Finland NUTS level 2 (major reorganisation) Portugal NUTS level 2 (major reorganisation) Spain NUTS level 2 (only Ceuta y Melilla)

Relevance for data providers Chapter 4 Relevance for data providers

What changes for you with the Regulation? All regional information sent to Eurostat should respect NUTS-2003 Any statistics disseminated by Eurostat with regional breakdown will respect NUTS-2003 Deviations from NUTS need to be justified Existing legislation which contains a regional breakdown of data should refer to the NUTS Regulation (when changed anyway)

Sources of information RAMON classifications server at Eurostat http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/eurostat/ramon/nuts/codelist_en.cfm Publication in PDF (2 parts) http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/eurostat/Public/datashop/print-catalogue/EN?catalogue=Eurostat&collection=05-Methodologies-Nomenclatures&product=KS-BD-03-002-3A-N-part1-EN (paper copy handed out to you)

Thanks for listening ! Any Questions ?