1.Without prejudice to reporting obligations, data collections or any data access laid down in sectoral statistical legislation of the Union or to the obligation for data holders to make data available on the basis of an exceptional need in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2023/2854 of the European Parliament and the Council 8, an NSI or the Commission (Eurostat) may request a private data holder to make data and the relevant metadata available free of charge where the data requested are strictly necessary for the development, production and dissemination of European statistics and cannot be obtained by other means or their reuse will result in a considerable reduction in the response burden on data holders and other businesses. Such data collections or data access may be included by the Commission in the annual work programme.
2.As coordinator of the national statistical system, an NSI may submit a request for data to a private data holder on behalf of any other national authority, where the data requested are necessary for European statistics developed, produced and disseminated by that other national authority. The NSI and the other national authorities of a Member State shall cooperate in order to avoid excessive burden on private data holders.
3.The NSIs and the Commission (Eurostat) shall cooperate and assist each other in order to avoid excessive burden on private data holders and to determine who is to submit requests for data. In particular, the request for data shall be submitted to a private data holder by the NSI unless the Commission (Eurostat) and the NSIs concerned agree that the request by the Commission (Eurostat) is more efficient, for instance in the case of private data holders operating on a Union-wide scale.
4.The Commission (Eurostat) may, in agreement with the NSIs, set up a secure infrastructure, to be used on a voluntary basis, to facilitate the further sharing with the NSIs and the other national authorities of data that have been accessed in accordance with paragraph 3.
5.Where data requested by an NSI under paragraph 1 require a specific processing service, Member States may provide compensation to the private data holder for that specific processing service, except where national law prevents the NSI or other national authorities responsible for the production of statistics from compensating data holders. Where data are requested by the Commission (Eurostat) for efficiency reasons pursuant to paragraph 3, and a specific processing service is needed, the Commission (Eurostat) shall propose reasonable compensation to the private data holder for that specific processing service.
6.This Article shall not apply to microenterprises or small enterprises as defined in Article 2 of the Annex to Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC 11, except in duly justified cases where the data held by such microenterprises or small enterprises are of specific interest for official statistics because of the nature and volume of those data at national level.