11/06/2007 (Agence Europe) - the European Commission has just published its report on the implementation of the NUTS (Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics) regulation. In this regulation, (EC) 1059/2003, the Commission notes that, for some areas of regional statistics, any change in NUTS nomenclature creates considerable problems for the maintenance and recalculation of statistical data. Thus the Commission decided to adopt a restrictive approach with its proposals for changes of NUTS regions. It adds that in discussions with applicant countries, the arrangements of the NUTS regulation were used to encourage the countries involved to bring their proposals into line with a more harmonised European regional nomenclature. The report is available at: http: //eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/site/en/com/2007/com2007_0287en01.pdf (gb)