Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT)

Population and Migration Statistics Section

Pireos 46 & Eponiton Str

GR- 18510 Piraeus

GREECE

Data and metadata are transmitted to Eurostat by the Member States in the framework of the Unified Demographic Data Collection which is in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 and Regulation (EU) No 1260/2013 and their implementing regulations.

This Euro SDMX Metadata Structure is used for the purpose of quality reporting. The definition of the quality concepts and guidelines are described in the European Statistical System Handbook for Quality Reports.

The regional breakdown of the Member States in the regional demographic tables is done under the most recent NUTS classification. There are agreements between Eurostat and Candidate countries as well as between Eurostat and EFTA countries, for which statistical regions have been coded in a way that resembles NUTS.

For more information on the versions in force, please see: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/nuts/.

Entire country.

Number of persons.

Population, live births and deaths data are available at national and regional level of geographical detail.

For vital statistics, data and estimated population data are available since 1931. For migration, data are available since 2008.

Not applicable.

Data are collected or estimated at unit (person) level.

The reference date for population data is the end of the reference period (midnight of 31 December).
The reference period for vital and dual events data is the calendar year in which the events occurred. The reference period for migration flow data is the calendar year in which the migration occurred.

The legal framework concerning the organization and operation of ELSTAT is as follows:

— Law 3832/2010 (Government Gazette No 38, Issue Α): “Hellenic Statistical System, Establishment of the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) as an Independent Authority”, as amended by article 90 paragraphs 8 and 9 of the Law 3842/2010 (Government Gazette No 58, Issue Α): “Restoration of fiscal justice, confrontation of tax evasion and other provisions”, by article 10 of the Law 3899/2010 (Government Gazette No 212, Issue A): “Urgent measures for the implementation of the assistance program of the Greek Economy”, by article 45 of the Law 3943/2011 (Government Gazette No 66, Issue A): “Combating tax evasion, staffing of auditing services and other provisions falling within the competence of the Ministry of Finance”, by article 22 paragraph 1 of the Law 3965/2011 (Government Gazette No 113, Issue A): “Operations Reform of the Consignment and Loan Fund, Public Debt Management Agency, Public Enterprises and Government bodies, the establishment of the General Secretary of Public Property and other provisions” and by article 51 of the Law 4021/2011 (Government Gazette No 218, Issue A): “Enhanced measures for the supervision and restructuring of Credit Institutions – Regulation issues of financial nature – Ratification of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) Framework-Agreement and its amendments and other provisions.”

— Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council, on the European statistics (Official Journal of the European Union L 87/164).

— Article 14 of the Law 3470/2006 (Government Gazette No 132, Issue A): “National Export Council, tax regulations and other provisions”.

— Article 3, paragraph 1c, of the Law 3448/2006 (Government Gazette No 57, Issue A): “For thefurther use of information coming from the public sector and the settlement of matters falling within the responsibility of the Ministry of Interior, Public Administration and Decentralization”.

— European Statistics Code of Practice, adopted by the Statistical Programme Committee on 24 February 2005 and promulgated in the Commission Recommendation of 25 May 2005 on the independence, integrity and accountability of the national and Community statistical Authorities, after its revision, which was adopted on 28 September 2011 by the European Statistical System Committee.

— Articles 4, 8, 9, 10, 12 , 13, 14, 15 and 16 of the Law 2392/1996 (Government Gazette No 60, Issue Α): “Access of the General Secretariat of the National Statistical Service of Greece to administrative sources and administrative files, Statistical Confidentiality Committee, settlement of matters concerning the conduct of censuses and statistical works, as well as of matters of the General Secretariat of the National Statistical Service of Greece”.

— Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 of the European Parliament and of the Council on Community statistics on migration and international protection, article 3 “Statistics on international migration, usually resident population and acquisition of citizenship”.

— Commission Regulation (EU) no 351/2010 implementing Regulation (EC) No 862/2007 of the European Parliament and of the Council on Community statistics on migration and international protection as regards the definitions of the categories of the groups of country of birth, groups of country of previous usual residence, groups of country of next usual residence and groups of citizenships.

— Commission Regulation (EU) no 205/2014 of the Council implementing Regulation (EU) No 1260/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European demographic statistics as regards breakdowns of data, deadlines and data revisions.

— Presidential Decree 73/2019 (Government Gazette No 114, Issue Α): “Organization of the Hellenic Statistical Authority”.

For vital and marriage events access to Citizen's Register - Ministry of Interior (Mitroo Politon).

The issues concerning the observance of statistical confidentiality by the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) are arranged by articles 7, 8 and 9 of the Law 3832/2010 as in force, by Articles 8, 10 and 11(2) of the Regulation on Statistical Obligations of the agencies of the Hellenic Statistical System and by Articles 10 and 15 of the Regulation on the Operation and Administration of ELSTAT.
More precisely, ELSTAT disseminates the statistics in compliance with the statistical principles of the European Statistics Code of Practice and in particular with the principle of statistical confidentiality. 

ELSTAT protects and does not disseminate data it has obtained or it has access to, which enable the direct or indirect identification of the statistical units that have provided them by the disclosure of individual information directly received for statistical purposes or indirectly supplied from administrative or other sources. ELSTAT takes all appropriate preventive measures so as to render impossible the identification of individual statistical units by technical or other means that might reasonably be used by a third party. Statistical data that could potentially enable the identification of the statistical unit are disseminated by ELSTAT if and only if:

— these data have been treated, as it is specifically set out in the Regulation on Statistical Obligations of the agencies of the Hellenic Statistical System (ELSS), in such a way that their dissemination does not prejudice statistical confidentiality; or

— the statistical unit has given its consent, without any reservations, for the disclosure of data.

The confidential data that are transmitted by ELSS agencies to ELSTAT are used exclusively for statistical purposes and the only persons who have the right to have access to these data are the personnel engaged in this task and appointed by an act of the President of ELSTAT.

ELSTAT may grant researchers conducting statistical analyses for scientific purposes access to data that enable the indirect identification of the statistical units concerned. The access is granted provided the following conditions are satisfied:

— an appropriate request together with a detailed research proposal in conformity with current scientific standards have been submitted;

— the research proposal indicates in sufficient detail the set of data to be accessed, the methods of analysing them, and the time needed for the research;

— a contract specifying the conditions for access, the obligations of the researchers, the measures for respecting the confidentiality of statistical data and the sanctions in case of breach of these obligations has been signed by the individual researcher, by his/her institution, or by the organization commissioning the research, as the case may be, and by ELSTAT.

Issues referring to the observance of statistical confidentiality are examined by the Statistical Confidentiality Committee (SCC) operating in ELSTAT. The responsibilities of this Committee are to make recommendations to the President of ELSTAT on:

— the level of detail at which statistical data can be disseminated, so as the identification, either directly or indirectly, of the surveyed statistical unit is not possible;

— the anonymization criteria for the microdata provided to users;

— the granting to researchers access to confidential data for scientific purposes.

The staff of ELSTAT, under any employment status, as well as the temporary survey workers who are employed for the collection of statistical data in statistical surveys conducted by ELSTAT, who acquire access by any means to confidential data, are bound by the principle of confidentiality and must use these data exclusively for the statistical purposes of ELSTAT. After the termination of their term of office, they are not allowed to use these data for any purpose.

Violation of data confidentiality and/or statistical confidentiality by any civil servant or employee of ELSTAT constitutes the disciplinary offence of violation of duty and may be punished with the penalty of final dismissal.

ELSTAT, by its decision, may impose a penalty amounting from ten thousand (10 000) up to two hundred thousand (200 000) euros to anyone who violates the confidentiality of data and/or statistical confidentiality. The penalty is always imposed after the hearing of the defence of the person liable for the breach, depending on the gravity and the repercussions of the violation. Any relapse constitutes an aggravating factor for the assessment of the administrative sanction.

For vital events, annual data are announced 10 months after the reference year (based on the year event).

For population and migration, data are announced 12 months after the end of the reference year.

https://www.statistics.gr/en/calendar.

Data is available simultaneously to all interested parties in accordance with the calendar announcements through press releases and posting tables on the website, in the link Population and Social Conditions: http://www.statistics.gr. Equal access of users to the data is covered by Eurostat’s European Statistics Code of Practice respecting professional independence and in an objective, professional and transparent manner by which all users are treated with equality. There is no access to the data by any user before the announcement.

Annually.

Usually, the press release regarding Vital Statistics is announced at the end of September, each year and the press release on population and migration at the end of December.

Special editions containing the main results of the Vital Statistics survey and Estimated Migration Flows and Estimated Population are released each year.

The links for 2022 are:

https://www.statistics.gr/el/statistics/-/publication/SPO03/- for live-births;

https://www.statistics.gr/el/statistics/-/publication/SPO09/2022 for deaths;

and https://www.statistics.gr/el/statistics/-/publication/SPO18/-  for Estimated Population.

http://www.statistics.gr/en/statistics/pop (see Demography).

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

A Summary Methodological Note is attached to the Annex. This note is also released to the link: 

https://www.statistics.gr/en/statistics/-/publication/SPO18/-.

The main data users are researchers (university community, international organizations, research centres etc.), Ministries and journalists.

User requirements are mainly time series for different variables of population, vital statistics and causes of death.

Available at http://www.statistics.gr/en/user-satisfaction-survey.

Data covers the 95 % of the user requirements. All the obligations arising from the regulations of the European Union are met.

According to Article 4 (2) of the Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 205/2014, each year Member States shall provide the Commission (Eurostat) with data at national and regional level as described in Annex II and related standard reference metadata (In the metadata structure definition defined for the Euro SDMX Metadata Structure) for the reference year within 12 months of the end of the reference year. According to Article 3 (2) of the Commission Regulation (EC) No 862/2007, Statistics on international migration, usually resident population and acquisition of citizenship shall be supplied to the Commission (Eurostat) within 12 months of the end of the reference year.

Data were transmitted to Eurostat usind SDMX format until 29.12.2023 according to EU Regulations.

All data are full comparable between regions. Common data collection framework (concepts, definitions, classifications, etc.) in all geographic areas.

This population estimation is used for all statistical domains and census results are used for the estimation as well as for the update of the population structure.

Regarding vital events cross checks are not possible due to unavailability of other relevant sources.

There are no differences. The demographic equation for estimating the resident population is used.

Common methodology in the compilation of results are applied to ensure the internal coherence.

Not estimated.

Intercensal years estimates could be subject to revision if necessary, always according to the Revision Policy of ELSTAT. 

Relevant link: http://www.statistics.gr/documents/20181/1195539/ELSTAT_Revisions_Policy_25_10_2018_EN.pdf/604b51dd-5dc2-4c7c-8b74-2766bda16e5e.

Data on last year's estimation are subject to revision after the finalization of population census results.

Vital statistics data are collected on a monthly basis.

Employees of Registry Offices register the Certificates of Births, Deaths, Marriages and Divorces in the Registrations Information System of the Ministry of Interior. Ministry of Interior transmit the required information to ELSTAT. For persons related to the international or temporary protection procedures, data are collected by the Ministry of Migration and Asylum.

In addition to the checks carried out by the administrative sources, validation checks are carried out by ELSTAT.

Compilation of tables by event and by age, sex, marital status, citizenship, place of birth, place of residence, place of event, Region, Regional Unit, education level, occupation, cause of death and other variables and comparative tables (time series), showing the evolution of the Vital Statistics.

Compilation of estimated total population tables with the usage of Vital Statistics data and the estimation of yearly net migration.

Demographic balancing equation is applied. Some adjustments are used because of rounding.

We send separately an annex describing in detail the migration and population estimation processes.