Article 7 Transmission of results

Member States shall transmit to the Statistical Office of the European Communities the results of the data processing referred to in Article 6, including data declared confidential by the Member States pursuant to domestic legislation or practice concerning statistical confidentiality, in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 322/97.

The results shall be transmitted according to the data files shown in Annex I. The files shall be specified by the Commission. Those measures, designed to amend non-essential elements of this Regulation, shall be adopted in accordance with the regulatory procedure with scrutiny referred to in Article 11(3).

The first period of observation shall begin on 1 January 2003. Transmission shall take place as soon as possible and no later than six months after the end of the period of observation.