1. Statistical Cooperation in Eurostat
The European Statistical Training Programme (ESTP) European Statistical week, a study visit to Eurostat
Statistical Cooperation in Eurostat
Unit A3
Ms Claudia JUNKER
Luxembourg, October 2014

2. Outline How is international cooperation organised in Eurostat?
What countries are we talking about?
What are the goals of statistical cooperation?
Why is statistics important?
What is the role of statistics in the relevant political processes?
Mandate for statistical cooperation and strategic documents
What are the reference documents in statistics?
What are the activities of statistical cooperation?
How do we measure compliance with the EU acquis in statistics?
How do we cooperate with the enlargement countries
How do we cooperate with the ENP countries?
How do we cooperate with the ACP/ALA countries?
What tools can be offered?

3. How is international cooperation organised in Eurostat?
Directorate A: Cooperation in the ESS; International Cooperation; Resources
Unit A3: Statistical cooperation deals with three groups of countries, grouped per three Teams:
Enlargement Team - Candidate and potential candidates (CC/PCC)
ENP Team - European Neighbourhood Policy countries (ENP)
ACP/ALA Team - African, Caribbean, Pacific (ACP) and Asia + Latin America (ALA)
Unit A1: European Statistical System governance deals with international organisations and high income countries

4. What countries are we talking about?
CC: Albania, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Island, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey
Potential CC: Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo*
ENP-East: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine
ENP-South: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia
ACP and ALA: no countries but regional organisations (ASEAN, AU, COMESA, EAC, SADC, ECLAC)
* This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo declaration of independence.

5. What are the goals of statistical cooperation?
Promote statistics and its usefulness in the partner countries
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 policies
Collect and disseminate data from the countries
Provide tools for the production of statistics and for cooperation purposes

6. Why statistics is 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

7. What is the role of statistics in the relevant political processes?
Statistics has a dual role in the Stabilisation and Association Process/the process of Association and Partnership Agreements and in the EU accession negotiations:
Statistics is one chapter of the negotiation processes (enlargement, association, partnership)
Serves other policy areas by providing data for monitoring the changes and assessing the impact of policies chosen

8. Mandate for statistical cooperation and strategic documents
Pillars in the mandate of Unit A3:
Support to the process of data delivery for EU policy purposes
Promotion of EU standards
Promotion of EU values
Main areas of action for the three regions: strategy development; implementation of technical assistance programmes; peer reviews and global assessments; data collection; political process and seminars.
Flagship documents – the Strategies for statistical cooperation according to geo-political regions:
Strategy on Statistical Co-operation with the Enlargement Countries
Strategy for Statistical Cooperation in the ENP-East Region
Strategy for Euro-Mediterranean cooperation in statistics

9. What are the reference documents in statistics?
The Statistical Requirements Compendium (SRC)
The Compendium is published regularly (once a year/18 months)
The 2014 SRC covers 8 priority areas, with 70 modules
The SRC follows the European Statistics Annual Programme 2014
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

10. What are the activities of statistical cooperation?
Enlargement countries and ENP countries
Provide services to other Eurostat units (filter of requests)
To collect, validate and disseminate data
To provide statistics for policy purposes
To design/implement/support IPA/ENI regional statistical assistance programmes
To advice on the design/implementation of IPA/ENI national assistance programmes
To contribute to the political process with data, reports, meetings
To monitor compliance with the EU acquis
To implement global assessments and peer reviews and follow-up recommendations
To organise high level seminars and meetings
Developing countries
To advice on regional capacity building programmes
To host study visits/high level meetings to share best practices
To organise workshops on ESS values and initiatives
To develop tools for statistical production or planning development assistance
To provide experience on the ESS model to other regional organisations
To design/implement a pan African cooperation programme

11. How do we measure compliance with the EU acquis in statistics?
Eurostat assesses the quality and timeliness of data submitted to Eurostat
Eurostat carries out annual compliance monitoring (SMIS+)
Eurostat organises independent evaluations of the national statistical systems (peer reviews, global assessments)
Progress Reports
Part of the annual enlargement / ENP package
The Commission's assessment of the achievements by each of the enlargement/ENP countries over the last year
Statistics is presented as a separate chapter and a statistical annex is included in the reports

12. How do we cooperate with the enlargement countries
National IPA programmes and regional programmes for statistics
IPA multi-beneficiary programmes (MBPs) for statistics – 56M€ for
The assistance under MBPs is guided according to the objectives set out in the Strategy for statistical cooperation with enlargement countries
Implementation instruments: grants and service contract.
Activities financed: governance issues (e.g. the application of the European Statistics Code of Practice), management and dissemination, indicator development, wide array of statistical areas (e.g. macro-economic statistics, trade statistics, labour market statistics, business statistics, social statistics, agriculture statistics).
Instruments for assistance: pilot projects, participation in meetings within the ESS, study visits and consultancies, trainings, traineeships.

13. How do we cooperate with the ENP countries?
ENP South – advice on Medstat programmes (regional programmes)
ENP East and South – advice on twinning projects with Member States
Selected statistical domains, mainly related to EU policies
Instruments: study visits, participation in meetings, consultations by experts, training courses, workshops
ENP East and South – organisation of high level meetings (high level seminars, FORUM)
ENP East – set-up of a panel on statistics (political process)
ENP East and South – assessments of statistical systems and statistical domains
ENP East and South – workshops on quality and CoP
Involvement of member states and other partners (EFTA, UNECE) in the activities

14. How do we cooperate with the ACP/ALA countries?
Increasing focus on Africa – particularly the African Union
Elsewhere – all activities relate to regions rather than countries
High level seminars on (for example) CoP, quality, SDMX
Promotion and training of Eurostat tools (see next slide)
The Pan African Programme for Statistical Capacity Building
€17 million over 7 years
Support African Union to develop its statistical capacity to monitor AU policies and the integration process
Links to the international process to define new development goals, Africa must build capacity if they are to be measured

15. What tools can be offered?
ERETES - compilation of national accounts data
ESSENTIAL SNA - handbook on system of national accounts
EUROTRACE - compilation of external trade data
SNAPSHOT NSS - assessment of a statistical system
GUIDE – handbook on the design of statistical cooperation projects

16. Thank you for your attention! Questions?