L 228/28 Official Journal of the European Communities 8.9.2000 COMMISSION REGULATION (EC) No 1901/2000 of 7 September 2000 laying down certain provisions for the implementation of Council Regulation (EEC) No 3330/91 on the statistics relating to the trading of goods between Member States THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, Having regard to Council Regulation (EEC) No 3330/91 of 7 November 1991 on the statistics relating to the trading of goods between Member States ('), as last amended by European Parliament and Council Regulation (EC) No 1624/2000 (%), and in particular Article 30 thereof, Whereas: 1) SRS NS Slelrlslewe LLoLeene e Commission Regulation (EEC) No 3046/92 (}) laying down provisions implementing and amending Regula- tion (EEC) No 3330/91, as last amended by Regulation (EC) No 2535/98 (%, has been substantially amended on several occasions. Commission Regulations (EEC) No 2256/92 (%), (EC) No 1125/94 (°) and (EC) No 2820/94 (') lay down addi- tional provisions for the implementation of Regulation (EEC) No 3330/91, concerning in particular statistical thresholds, deadlines for forwarding results, and threshold values for individual transactions in the context of statistics relating to trade between Member States. When further amendments are made to Regulation (EEC) No 3046/92, the relevant regulations should be drawn up in such a way which lightens the burden on enter- prises and administrations affected by these regulations. With a view to establishing the statistics relating to the trading of goods between Member States, the field of application of the Intrastat system should be precisely defined in relation to both the goods to be included and those to be excluded. The date from which the intra-Community operator is in practice to comply with his obligations to supply infor- mation must be determined and the extent of the obliga- tions of the third party to whom the party responsible for providing the information may transfer that task should be defined. Certain rules to be complied with by the departments concerned must be specified in detail in particular to allow efficient management of the registers of intra- Community operators. A key element of the Intrastat system consists in the use of value added tax information on intra-Community transactions. In order to ensure that the exhaustiveness 316, 16.11.1991, p. 1. 187, 26.7.2000, p. 1. 307, 23.10.1992, p. 27. 318, 27.11.1998, p. 22. 219, 4.8.1992, p. 40. 124, 18.5.1994, p. 1. 299, 22.11.1994, p. 1. (12) (13) of the statistics can be checked, it is appropriate to specify in a restrictive manner the information which may be passed between the administrative authorities in the Member States responsible for the application of laws on value added tax and those responsible for the establishment of statistics relating to the trading of goods between Member States. The burden on intra-Community operators must be lightened as much as possible, either by exempting them from statistical obligations or by simplifying procedures. This lightening of the burden must be limited only by the demands of statistics of a satisfactory quality, which must consequently be defined. All the Member States must have the instruments needed to ensure quality, while taking into account their own economic and commercial structure. There is a need to specify the way in which the thresh- olds applying to certain data will be calculated. For the statistical procedure, this information needs to be distin- guished from the procedure used for the statistical and tax declarations. Despite the existence of statistical thresholds, there remain parties responsible for providing information effecting a large number of low-value transactions who are obliged to communicate these in the greatest detail, an obligation which represents a burden out of all proportion to the usefulness of the information thus obtained. It is necessary to reduce the burden. A list should be drawn up of the goods to be excluded from the statistical returns relating to the trading of goods. The data to be reported and the arrangements for reporting such data should be defined in more detail. Of the units of quantity, net mass, in kilograms, is the main indicator and should in principle be mentioned for every type of goods. However, for certain products, it is not the most appropriate unit of measurement. The party responsible for providing information should therefore be exempted from indicating net mass in such cases. Specific movements of goods may account for a substantial share of the statistics on the trading of goods between Member States. The absence of harmonised provisions at Community level is prejudicial to the comparability of statistics between Member States. Wherever possible, harmonisation of statistical legisla- tion in the field of specific movements should be improved by complying with the relevant international recommendations.