The EU approves the mandate to negotiate the amendment of the European statistics regulation

On 23 November, the Committee of the Permanent Representatives of the Governments of the Member States to the European Union 2 (COREPER 2) approved the mandate to commence the inter-institutional negotiations on the Regulation that amends the Regulation 223/2009 on European statistics.

The general aim of this proposal is to adapt the legal framework that regulates European statistics to the future and significantly improve the capacity of response of the European Statistical System (ESS) to the needs of data. Thus, the ESS will be able to prepare more relevant statistics that are available more rapidly and in greater detail, which will improve efficiency and reduce the costs and burdens for member States and the people surveyed.

This initiative also sets out to provide a mechanism and tools so that the ESS can react swiftly and in a collective and coordinated manner to urgent demands for data in times of crisis.

More specifically, it aims to enable the statistics authorities to leverage all the potential of the sources and digital data technologies by favouring their use for the production of European statistics.

This will contribute to making the ESS more efficient and effective by promoting the exchange of data and strengthening its coordination, as well as describing possible roles that statistical authorities could play in emerging European and national data ecosystems, in full compliance with the principle of subsidiarity.

Council’s Statistics Working Group

The Council’s Statistics Working Group has been chaired for the past six months by the president of the INE. This group includes a delegation from each Member State – usually representatives of national statistical offices – and Eurostat, as well as the General Secretariat of the Council, the Council’s Legal Service and the INE’s team of the office of the president.

The amendment of the European Statistics Regulation has been one of the priorities of the Spanish Presidency in the field of statistics and was discussed at the meetings of the Working Party in July, September and October, until it achieved broad support from delegations.

Following the October meeting, the INE sent a consultation to the countries confirming support for the presidency’s compromise proposal. It then requested the inclusion of this dossier in the agenda of COREPER 2 in order to obtain the general negotiating mandate, which was approved in November.