Outcome of the second meeting of the Council Working Party on Statistics

Brussels, 6 September 2023

The second meeting of the Council Working Party on Statistics (CWPS) under the Spanish Presidency took place on Wednesday 6 September 2023. It was chaired by Ms Elena Manzanera, President of the National Statistics Institute, and it was the first face-to-face meeting under this Presidency.

The main topic of the agenda was the Proposal for a Regulation amending Regulation (EC) 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European statistics – 2023/0237 (COD) /ST 11723/23, that had been adopted on 10 July and presented by the Commission on 19 July during the informal Council Working Party on Statistics meeting.

After a written consultation about the proposal, the delegates had the opportunity to share all their views about most of the content of the draft regulation, except for article 3 and the recitals that will be reviewed in the following meeting.

Ms Manzanera summarized, article by article, the main issues that had been identified after the comments received and opened the floor for the delegates to express their views and concerns. Also, the Chair gave the opportunity to the Commission to clarify all the aspects that needed further explanation, as requested by the Member States.

Before concluding the meeting, the Chair briefly informed about the state of play of other statistical dossiers. As regards the dossier on Labour Market Statistics on Businesses (LMB), she recalled that a written consultation is underway. As for European environmental economic accounts (EEEA) and European Statistics on Population and Housing (ESOP), both dossiers are pending the vote by the European Parliament.

The next meeting of the CWPS is scheduled for Wednesday 4 October 2023 in Brussels.