L 33/6 Official Journal of the European Union 3.2.2009 COMMISSION REGULATION (EC) No 97/2009 of 2 February 2009 implementing Regulation (EC) No 295/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning structural business statistics, as regards the use of the flexible module (Text with EEA relevance) THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, Having regard to Regulation (EC) No 295/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2008 concerning structural business statistics ('), and in particular Article 3(4) thereof, Whereas: (1) Regulation (EC) No 295/2008 established a common framework for the collection, compilation, transmission and evaluation of Community statistics on the structure, activity, competitiveness and performance of businesses in the Community. (2) It is necessary to plan the use of the flexible module referred to in Article 3(2)(j) of that Regulation in close cooperation with Member States and to decide its scope, list of characteristics, reference period, activities to be covered and quality requirements. (3)  Access to finance is a major policy constraint in most Member States and the Community alike. There is strong evidence that European enterprises suffer from a financing gap, especially if they grow fast or if they are characterised as young firms. Therefore statistics are needed to enable the situation of these enterprises to be analysed in comparison to all small and medium- sized enterprises. These data should be extracted from existing sources if possible. (4)  Any further necessary technical details will be subject to guidelines and recommendations elaborated by the Commission (Eurostat) in close cooperation with Member States. (5)  The measures provided for in this Regulation are in accordance with the opinion of the Statistical Programme Committee, () O] L 97, 9.4.2008, p. 13. HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION: Atrticle 1 The flexible module referred to in Article 3(2)(j) of Regulation (EC) No 295/2008 shall be used to produce statistics on access to finance by businesses. The scope of the data collection shall be enterprises in the non-financial business community with 10 to 249 persons employed in 2005 and which were still active in 2008 and have 10 or more persons employed in the reference period as stated in Article 6, and as sub-populations high- growth enterprises (average annualised employment growth of more than 20 % per annum over the period from 2005 to 2008) and ‘gazelles’ (high-growth enterprises that are up to five years old), first established in 2003 or 2004. Atrticle 2 In order to limit the burden on businesses and the costs to the Member States, existing data from administrative sources shall be used, if possible. Atrticle 3 The characteristics included in the data collection shall be: (a) the relevance of the ownership situation at the start of the enterprise and at the observation time for access to finance; (b) the degree and success rates of all attempts to obtain various sorts of internal and external financing and the reasons for not obtaining such financing; (c) the extent of guarantees for business loans; (d) the perception by the owner/manager of the cost and burden of obtaining business loans and of the enterprise’s financial situation; () the importance of the choice of financial institution (geographic proximity, in particular cross-border situations, foreign vs. domestic ownership, prior client status, etc.); (f) the debt/turnover ratio and other correlations of finance characteristics in the enterprise accounts and their importance for future business growth;