Statistical cooperation The role of Eurostat on the international stage. Cooperation with other international organisations and countries Unit A6 Statistical cooperation 1

How is international cooperation organised in Eurostat? Directorate A: Cooperation in the ESS; International Cooperation, Resources Unit A6: Statistical cooperation deals with three groups of countries: Candidate and potential candidates (CC) European Neighbourhood Policy countries (ENP) African, Caribbean, Pacific (ACP) and Asia Latin America (ALA) Unit A1: European Statistical System governance deals with international organisations and high income countries 2

What countries are we talking about? Acceding country: Croatia CC: Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Island, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey Potential CC: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo under UN Security Control Resolution 1244 ENP-East: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine ENP-South: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, oPt and Tunisia ACP and ALA: a number of countries in those two regions

What are the goals of statistical cooperation? Strengthen the statistical systems of partner countries, including the institutional framework Human resources development and training Strengthen the national standing of the NSIs Promote international comparability of the statistics produced - harmonisation with European standards Sustainable production of timely, reliable, objective and comparable statistics for relevant Community policy areas Collect and disseminate data from the countries Why is statistics important and how do we support enlargement countries? CHALLENGES FOR THE NATIONAL STATISTICAL INSTITUTES Development of the administrative and institutional capacity Improvement of sustainability, transfer of knowledge, and ownership Greater availability, quality and comparability of the statistical data in the selected priority areas Preparation for the eventual full application of the acquis 4

Why is statistics important? Statistics is a public good Statistics is needed for evidence-based decision making both nationally and on EU level Statistics plays a particularly important role in the EU due to its use for key administrative purposes (own resources, agricultural and regional policy.) In a democracy, the use of evidence-based (i.e. with statistics) policy making is essential to ensure: Transparency Accountability Independency

What is the role of statistics in the enlargement? Statistics has a dual role in the Stabilisation and Association Process and in the EU accession negotiations: Statistics is one chapter of the acquis that defines the harmonisation with the EU standards and rules and which has to be implemented in the pre-accession period Serves other policy areas by providing data for monitoring the changes and assessing the impact of policies chosen Decision-making tool for national and international policy makers, businesses and the society at large (and donors) Essential basis for the development of democratic and market-oriented societies 6

How do we measure compliance in statistics with the acquis? Eurostat assesses the quality and timeliness of data submitted to Eurostat Eurostat carries out annual compliance monitoring Eurostat organises independent evaluations of the national statistical systems Progress Reports Part of the annual enlargement package The Commission's assessment of the achievements by each of the enlargement countries over the last year Statistics is presented as a separate chapter 7

What are the reference documents in statistics? The Statistical Requirements Compendium (SRC) The Compendium is published every year The 2011 SRC covers 7 domains, with 44 themes and 99 modules The SRC follow the Statistical Work Programme of the Commission, the Community Statistical Programme 2008-2012) The European Statistics Code of Practice (CoP) Common standards on the independence, integrity and accountability of the NSIs Revised CoP adopted in 2011 15 Principles covering the Institutional environment, Statistical processes and Statistical output Main focus: Macro-economic statistics, Price statistics, External trade statistics, Demographic and social statistics, Agricultural statistics, Business statistics The Statistical Requirements Compendium (SRC) The Compendium is published every year The 2011 SRC covers 7 domains, with 44 themes and 99 modules The SRC follow the Statistical Work Programme of the Commission, the Community Statistical Programme 2008-2012) The European Statistics Code of Practice (CoP) Common standards on the independence, integrity and accountability of the NSIs Revised CoP adopted in 2011 15 Principles covering the Institutional environment, Statistical processes and Statistical output For each theme and module that is relevant for European official statistics producers, the Compendium provides: a description and the key priorities for 2010, the relevant legal acts with the Official Journal reference and other documents relevant for compilation of statistics, the data requirements – i.e. the data sets to be provided by European statistics producers to Eurostat, methodological information. 8

How do we cooperate with the ENP countries ? Activities with the ENP countries: MEDSTAT programme (ENP-South) Association Agreements High Level Seminar (ENP-East) Twinning and Twinning Light projects Assessments of the national statistical systems (AGA/LPR) TAIEX and selected training courses Participation in selected events (e.g. the Quality Conference) Data collection and publication Involvement of member states and other partners (EFTA, UNECE) in the activities

What are the tools for cooperation with ACP and ALA countries?  ASTRA - managing the statistical training demand in developing countries  ERETES - compilation of national accounts data  ESSENTIAL SNA - handbook on system of national accounts  EUROTRACE - compilation of external trade data  ECOTRIM - an additional tool developed by Eurostat  PRICE TOOL - Future CPI & ICP tool  SNAPSHOT NSS - assessment of a statistical system

Question time Are the Twinning projects part of cooperation strategy in statistics? How Eurostat supports ENP and how can NSI contribute? What are future plans for cooperation? What is the policy for CC support and how it is done? How to reduce the administrative burden of EU projects? How evaluations of CC are made? Is training available before accession? Are there sanction mechanism after accession? What is the strategy of cooperation with CC? What is the largest part of it? What standards are most important to be fulfilled by CCs? Does the ESS has the same system and conditions of work with CC as compared to the EU members? Are the CC included in the ESS and what are their obligations? How does the ESS overcome problems concerning differences between countries (when they cause doubts when publishing data)?

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