Session No.
7
Paper No.
2
Country: Germany
Legal units with the character of "public undertaking"
in the German statistical business register
Heinz Schemmel
Federal Statistical Office
Federal Republic of Germany
1
Introduction
1.
The Council Regulation (EEC) No 2186/93 of 22 July 1993 on Community coordination
in drawing up business registers for statistical purposes1) (in the following referred to as
register regulation) stipulates that the register entries for the individual legal units must
include the
character of "public undertaking" of the legal unit within the meaning of
Commission Directive 80/723/EEC (Yes/No), where legal persons are concerned
(Annex II, No. 1, letter i). In the fifth "whereas" of the register regulation, it is explained
that the important role played by public undertakings in the national economies of the
Member States has been acknowledged, particularly in the Commission Directive
mentioned earlier. Therefore they should be identified in business registers. In Article 2
of that Directive, such undertakings are defined.
2.
In a justification of the selected characteristics in Annex II of the register regulation, the
Commission agencies2) state that - from the aspect of the "institutional character" - the
register regulation requires data which permit indirect coding of the institutional subgroups; among other things, the character of a "public undertaking" is mentioned there.
2
Defining public undertakings
3.
The Commission Directive of 25 June 1980 on the transparency of financial relations
between the Member Statesand public undertakings (80/723/EEC)3) - in the following
*)The author would like to thank Hans-Ulrich Braun and Hannelore Pöschl for their input to this report.
1)
Official Journal of the European Communities No L 196 of 5 August 1993, p. 1.
2)
General Secretariat of the Council: Document SN/1522/93.
3)
Official Journal of the Eurpean Communities No L 195 of July 1980, p. 35.
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referred to as transparency directive - stipulates that specific information must be
disclosed. In the sense of that directive (article 2), there are:
- public sector:
general government and other public authorities;
- public undertaking:
any undertaking on which the public sektor can exert directly or indirectly a
controlling influence by means of ownership, financial participation, statutes or other
provisions governing the undertaking's activity.
4.
It is assumed that a controlling influence is exerted if the public sector directly or
indirectly:
a) owns the majority of enterprise's subscribed capital or
b) has the majority of the voting rights connected with the shares in the enterprise or
c) can appoint more than half of the members of the enterprise's administrative,
governing, or supervisory body.
5.
In the "whereases" of the directive, it is explained that the public sector may exert a
controlling influence on the behaviour of public undertakings also because of the
powers it has in the administrative, governing, or supervisory bodies. These may be
based on statutes or on the distribution of shares.
6.
The transparency directive is not to be applied to the financial relations between the
public sector and public undertakings with a turnover of less than 40 million ECU or
with a balance sheet total of less than 800 million ECU in the case of public credit
institutions. It would have to be checked whether these cut-off thresholds are applicable
also to the enterprises to be identified as "public undertakings" in the business register.
7.
The transparency directive does not explain what indirect control really is. This might
refer to the control over another publicly controlled enterprise, or to the control by
another public unit which is not an enterprise.
8.
The transparency directive is to be applied to "enterprises". For two reasons, this can
only refer to legal units: First, financial relations of the public sector can exist with legal
units only and, second, the regulation on statistical units, giving a definition of the
enterprise as a statistical unit, did not yet exist when the directive entered into force.
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9.
In Germany, the statistical coverage of public undertakings is governed by the Law on
the Statistics of Public Finance and Public Service Personnel (Finance and Personnel
Statistics Law - FPStatG) of 21 December 19924). According to that law, government
and municipal funds, institutions, and business enterprises with a legally independent
form are to be included by specific surveys if the legal persons mentioned later have a
direct or indirect participation (through other public institutions or enterprises) of more
than 50 percent of the nominal capital or of the voting rights:
1. the federal government,
2. the Länder,
3. the communities and local authority associations,
4. the special-purpose associations and other legal persons of inter-community
cooperation if they perform community tasks in place of community authorities.
10.
Therefore, the direct and indirect participations of the mentioned public authorities have
to be determined.
11.
Budgetary legal provisions stipulate that federal and Länder governments should acquire
a participation in existing enterprises with a private legal form only if they obtain an
appropriate influence in the supervisory board or a similar supervisory body. So, it may
be assumed that the condition according to letter c in article 2 of the transparency
directive is fulfilled if there is a public participation in an enterprise.
3
Collecting, storing, and updating information on public undertakings and
their owners in the German statistical system
12. Information on public undertakings and their owners is obtained from sources that are
accessible to the general public and through surveys. The data are stored and updated in
a databank. That databank is maintained by the Federal Statistical Office and the
statistical offices of the Länder, the software and contents being identical.
3.1 Defining the participation of public authorities in enterprises
13.
4)
There is a direct participation of public authorities in an enterprise if one or several
public authorities own shares of that enterprise. There is a direct public majority
participation if one or several public authorities own a total of more than 50% of the
shares or voting rights of the enterprise concerned. Such an enterprise is referred to as a
directly publicly controlled enterprise.
Federal Law Gazette, part I, p. 2119.
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14.
There is an indirect participation of public authorities in an enterprise if a directly
publicly controlled enterprise owns shares of another enterprise. There is an indirect
public majority participation if the directly publicly controlled enterprise owns more
than 50% of the shares or voting rights of the other enterprise. That other enterprise is
referred to as an indirectly publicly controlled enterprise.
15.
Chart 1 shows the relations between public authorities and the enterprises in which such
public authorities have a direct or indirect participation. Generally, publicly controlled
decisions can be taken only by enterprises which are publicly controlled themselves.
Consequently, only a publicly controlled enterprise can have indirect public control
(possibly together with other owners) over another enterprise. In this case, the extent of
indirect public control corresponds to the entire participation of the first enterprise in the
second one. It is not weighted with the total of public shares in the controlling
enterprise.
16.
If, in turn, an indirectly publicly controlled enterprise has a participation in another
enterprise, this is an indirect public participation again. If that indirect public
participation alone - or together with other direct or indirect public participations exceeds 50%, that second enterprise also operates as an indirectly publicly controlled
enterprise. If, for example, direct public participations in an enterprise A do not form a
public majority, participations of that enterprise A in other enterprises cannot be used to
calculate indirect public majorities. If, however, further information about participations
of indirectly publicly controlled owners of enterprise A shows that the total public
participation exceeds 50%, enterprise A is considered an indirectly publicly controlled
enterprise. Consequently, all its participations in other enterprises have to be taken into
account when examining whether other enterprises are publicly controlled.
3.2 Survey of direct participations of public authorities in enterprises
17.
Generally accessible sources are used to obtain those enterprises in which public
authorities have a direct participation. If for any of those enterprises not all owners are
known, it is asked in a specific survey (basic survey) for information on its shareholders
and their shares in the subscribed capital and in the voting rights. That survey provides,
first of all, detailed and complete information on direct public owners (general government and other public authorities) and on other shareholding enterprises (see chart 2).
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3.3 Surveys of indirect participations of public authorities in enterprises
18.
Through the basic survey mentioned before, enterprises have been identified in which
public owners - alone or together - have a direct majority participation. Also, other
enterprises have been covered as owners, although it was not clear at that time whether
they are publicly controlled.
19.
Through a subsequent survey covering the participations of previously obtained publicly
controlled enterprises (participation survey), indirect public participations in enterprises
become obvious.
20.
A second basic survey is conducted following the participation survey and covering the
owners of those enterprises which were obtained through the participation survey. Thus,
the group of indirectly publicly controlled enterprises will be enlarged. That second
basic survey covers only those enterprises for which not all owners are known yet.
21.
The information obtained from the second basic survey will possibly necessitate a
second participation survey. That cycle of determining indirect public participations will
have to be continued until no further publicly controlled enterprises are obtained from
the information gathered.
3.4 Setting up a databank of public undertakings and their owners
22. That databank is maintained on personal computers by means of the ACCESS database
software. It consists of
- the file of units
(public authorities as owners; enterprises as owners;
enterprises in which there is a participation),
- the file of participations.
Developing the databank has not been finished yet.
23.
The information obtained from the surveys of enterprise owners and the surveys of
participations of publicly controlled enterprises are transferred to two data files: data on
units are stored in the units file, while data on shares are stored in the participations file.
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24.
The units file contains the following characteristics for any unit:
-
25.
identity number of the unit,
name or designation,
address,
legal form,
activity code,
code of the geographical location,
ownership status of the unit
codes of the statistics for which the unit provides information.
The participations file contains the following characteristics for any enterprise and for
any owner of that enterprise:
-
identity number of the unit (from the units file),
identity number of the owner (from the units file),
owner's share in the subscribed capital, in percent,
owner's share in the voting rights, in percent.
26.
In the participations file, every participation relationship between an enterprise and any
of its owners (which may be another enterprise or a public authority) is stored, that is,
separately at every hierarchical level and independently of each other. All direct and
indirect participation relationships of an enterprise are linked with each other across all
hierarchical levels and are made visible through the databank system. In a separate
programme run of the databank system, all participation relationships are recalculated
and the publicly controlled enterprises determined again.
27.
So far, not all surveys have been conducted yet, so that not all public undertakings are
stored in the databank.
4
Storing and updating the characteristic "public undertaking" in the
statistical business register with regard to legal persons
4.1 Completely setting up the register is a precondition
28.
The statistical business register in Germany is currently being set up. It contains some
2 million units. Following a plan by stages, which has been agreed upon with Eurostat,
setting up the register will be finished by the end of 1999. What has not been included
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yet is the services sector. Public undertakings may occur in any economic branch. To
avoid duplication of work, it is suitable not to take over the characteristic "public
undertaking" from the databank into the business register before the register has
completely been set up.
4.2 Matching the legal units between the databank and the statistical
business register by means of name, legal form, and address
29.
First, a batch programme (software package based on batch processing) is used to find
duplicates between the databank and the business register by means of name, address,
and legal form. Subsequently, the groups of duplicates found will be processed in
dialogue mode. Enterprises which are contained in the databank, but for which no match
could be found in the business register, will be searched manually in the register.
4.3 Including the legal unit's identity number from the data file
30.
If the search for duplicates finds a match for a specific unit, the identity number will be
transferred from the data file of units into the data record stored in the business register.
Also, the indicator of the legal unit's character as a "public undertaking" will be set to
"YES" in the business register. After the identity number has been integrated from the
databank into the business register, there will be less allocation work required in the
following years for updating the entries in the business register. Only additional units
will then have to be matched by using name or designation, legal form, and address.
5
Information on the economic importance of legal units with "public
undertaking" character
31.
The number of and turnovers attained by public undertakings are shown in a breakdown
by economic branches in table 1 and by legal forms in table 2. Table 3 shows selected
characteristics for the overall economy, public budgets or the "general government"
sector, and for public undertakings.
6
Breaking down statistical results by private and public enterprises
32.
The Council Regulation (EC, EURATOM) No 58/97 of 20 December 1996 Concerning
structural business statistics5) requires specific results to be broken down to the 3-digit
5)
Official Journal of the European Communities No L 14 of 17 January 1998, p. 1.
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level of NACE Rev. 1 (groups) by enterprises of the private and public sectors, that is in
the
- detailed module for structural statistics in industry (section 7 no. 3); for the
characteristics of series 2C, a breakdown by type of ownership between private and
public enterprises is required according to Commission Directive 723/80/EEC of 25
June 1980.6)
- detailed module for structural statistics in construction (section 7 no. 3); for the
characteristics of series 4C, a breakdown by type of ownership between private and
public enterprises is required according to Commission Directive 723/80/EEC of 25
June 1980.6)
The characteristics of series 2 C and 4 C for which results have to be broken down are
as follows:
Number of enterprises
Turnover
Production value
Value-added at basic prices (optional)
Value-added at factor cost
Total purchases of goods and services
Wages and salaries
Social security costs
Number of persons employed
Number of employees
Total intramural R & D expenditure (series 2C only)
Total number of R & D personnel (series 2C only).
Abstract
33.
The Council regulation on statistical business registers as well as the requirements of the
regulation on structural business statistics make it necessary to identify legal units with
the character of „public undertaking“ (legal persons only) in the business register for
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statistical purposes. For the definition of such undertakings reference is made to the
Commission Directive 80/723/EEC of 25 June 1980 on the transparency of financial
relations between Member States and public undertakings.
34.
In Germany, a special register of public undertakings has been built up and is being
updated for purposes of statistices on annual accounts of public undertakings and of
statistics on the personnel of public institutions (Federal Government and Laender as
well as communities and local authorities). This register will be linked to the general
business register by matching of addresses in both registers. After this the identification
number and the character of „public undertaking“ of the legal unit will be recorded in
the general business register. This information will be updated annually.
Keywords
- Public undertaking
- Financial relations
- Business register
- Participation of public authorities in enterprises
6)
Standardized specification of results to be transmitted, Eurostat document/D/SBS-SPC/APR98/5.
Table 1: Publicly controlled funds, institutions, and business enterprises
by economic branches, 1994
Economic branches
Art and culture
Sports and recreation
Housing
Waste water disposal
Waste disposal
Electricity supply
Gas supply
Water supply
Transport enterprises
Combined supply and transport enterprises
Sanatoria
Other economic branches
Total
Number
131
195
790
644
266
184
109
1,410
489
719
218
2,182
7,337
Turnover attained
DM million
716
500
18,994
5,529
7,234
39,553
12,991
7,128
15,290
71,327
1,433
185,296
365,991
Table 2: Publicly controlled funds, institutions, and business enterprises
by legal forms, 1994
Legal form
Private legal forms
- Public limited companies
- Limited liability companies
- Partnerships
- Other private legal forms
Public legal forms
- Special-purpose associations and other
legal persons of inter-community
cooperation
- Other corporations under public law
- Municipal undertakings
- Facilities
- Foundations
- Other public legal forms
Total
Number
4,253
Turnover attained
DM million
256,076
3,084
109,915
7,337
365,991
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Table 3: Selected key data from a macroeconomic aspect
for the years 1993 and 1994
Specification
1993
1994
Value added of the overall economoy
DM million
2 912 460
3 055 360
Value added of the general government sector
DM million
365 800
371 050
Value added of public undertakings
DM million
108 596
143 569
16 304
15 266
6 596
7 337
Number of public budgets
Number of public undertakings
Staff expenditure of public budgets
DM million
358 747
379 448
Personnel costs of public undertakings
DM million
125 200
114 671
Number of persons engaged under public budgets
6 502 646
6 094 300
Number of persons engaged by public undertakings
2 207 835
2 013 843
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Chart 1: Direct and indirect participation of public authorities
general
government
51 %
enterprise
B
26 %
25 %
enterprise
C
55 %
enterprise
D
51 %
enterprise
E
100 %
enterprise
F
13 %
community
A
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Chart 2: Surveys designed to determine public undertakings
enterprises in which
public authorities have
a participation
basic survey
databank
no
Publicly controlled
unit found?
yes
participation survey
databank
yes
New publicly
controlled unit
found?
no
end