Brussels, 24/06/2002 (Agence Europe) - Last Thursday in Madrid, the Ecofin Council adopted by qualified majority (with Germany voting against and Denmark abstaining) a common position on the proposal aimed at amending the regulation on structural business statistics. The proposal aims to add two new annexes to the initial regulation, the so-called "SBS regulation". The first of these annexes concerns the structural statistics of banks, the other those of pension funds. It also aims to extend the scope of Annex 1 of the ESS Regulation (relating to annual structural statistics) to include other financial intermediation and activities auxiliary to financial and insurance intermediation, as well as introduce two new characteristics on environmental expenditure in Annex II of the Regulation (relating to industrial statistics).