(1)

The dissemination of Union-wide harmonised census topics on a constant area grid, in particular on a 1 km2 grid, is a key European statistical output for future policy-making and census strategies by the Member States.

(2)

Pursuant to Article 14(1)(b) of Regulation (EC) No 223/2009, the Commission may decide in specific and duly justified cases, in order to meet unexpected needs, on a temporary direct statistical action which shall fulfil conditions laid down in Article 14(2) of that Regulation.

(3)

This temporary direct statistical action should provide for data collection covering one reference year. All Member States should be able to produce univariate census data geocoded to a 1 km2 grid at the reference date for the 2021 population and housing census; the Union should also make financial contributions to National Statistical Institutes and other national authorities to cover the incremental costs incurred by them. This action is supported by a cost-effectiveness analysis and an estimate of overall incremental production costs provided by the Commission.

(4)

This action is justified by a common need across the Union for reliable, accurate and comparable information on population distribution with sufficient spatial resolution, founded on harmonised output requirements and intended in particular for pan-European regional policy-making.

(5)

Harmonised, spatially resolved demographic information across the Union is available, and the objective is to disseminate one dataset per Member State, containing selected topics of the 2021 population and housing census geocoded to a 1 km2 grid. There is no additional burden on respondents as all necessary information will be obtained from the 2021 census data.

(6)

In particular, in order to achieve comparable harmonised outputs across the Union, a Union-wide constant area grid consisting of 1 km2 cells needs to be determined. Furthermore, the specific topics and their breakdowns as well as the detailed programme to be disseminated on this 1 km2 grid need to be established. Finally, it is necessary to specify the required spatial and statistical metadata for such a dataset.

(7)

Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (2) and related Commission Implementing Regulations lay down the required metadata (3), data format (4), and network services (5) for the dissemination of spatial data. In particular, point 1 of Annex III covers possible statistical grid systems for spatial data dissemination and, according to point 10 of Annex III, is applicable to spatial datasets under the theme ‘Population distribution — demography’.

(8)

Regulation (EC) No 763/2008 of the European Parliament and the Council (6) and related Commission Implementing Regulations establish common rules for transmission of the 2021 census data, in particular the reference year and the required metadata (7), the technical specifications of the census topics and their breakdowns (8), and the technical format (9).

(9)

Member States should transmit their validated data and metadata in electronic form, in an appropriate technical format to be provided by the Commission. The Statistical Data and Metadata eXchange (SDMX) initiative on statistical and technical standards for the exchange and sharing of data and metadata, on which the Census Hub is based, was launched by the Bank of International Settlements, the European Central Bank, the Commission (Eurostat), the International Monetary Fund, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the United Nations and the World Bank. For the exchange of official statistics, SDMX and the Census Hub provide statistical, technical and transmission standards. A technical format in accordance with those standards should therefore be introduced.

(10)

The Commission (Eurostat) hosted a project on ‘Harmonised protection of census data in the ESS’, which delivered good practices and implementation guidelines for the harmonised disclosure protection of 1 km2 grid data.

(11)

The measures provided for in this Regulation are in accordance with the opinion of the European Statistical System Committee,

(1)

‘grid’, ‘grid cell’ and ‘grid point’ mean grid, grid cell and grid point as defined in Annex II (2.1) of Regulation (EU) No 1089/2010;

(2)

‘total population’ means all persons of a grid cell whose usual residence is located in that grid cell;

(3)

‘data item’ means a single measurement contained in the table defined in Annex II of this Regulation;

(4)

‘data value’ means the information provided by a data item. A data value can be either a ‘numerical value’ or a ‘special value’;

(5)

‘numerical value’ means an integer number equal to or greater than ‘0’ that provides statistical information on the observation of that data item;

(6)

‘validated data’ means data verified by the Member States according to agreed validation rules;

(7)

‘observed value’ means a numerical value that represents observed or imputed information to the best of knowledge based on all available 2021 census information, in particular before the application of any statistical disclosure control measures;

(8)

‘confidential value’ means a numerical value which, in order to protect the statistical confidentiality of the data, must not be divulged in accordance with the Member States' protective measures against disclosure of statistical data;

(9)

‘special value’ means a symbol that is transmitted in a data item instead of a numerical value;

(10)

‘flag’ means a code that can accompany a particular data item to describe a specific characteristic of its data value.