Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union

C1: National accounts methodology; Standards and indicators

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The Principal European Economic Indicators (PEEIs) vintage database is a structured repository of real-time data as published on Eurostat’s website. Vintages provide a real-time picture of the statistical information available to policy-makers and analysts at a given point in time. The PEEIs vintage database does not contain duplicate vintages: vintages will be stored only when a change occurs in the published values of a time series, or when a new value in a time series is published. 

The vintage (real-time) data tables are as easy to use as the standard tables, but with one important additional feature: they contain a ‘revision date’ dimension that records the date when the vintages were published on Eurostat’s website. 

A new vintage is not a correction of errors: it represents a normal step in the statistical process, in which new vintages are produced as new information becomes available.  

Eurostat publishes vintages for three selected indicators:

• quarterly gross domestic product at market prices (GDP),
• monthly harmonized unemployment (ILO definition),
• monthly industrial production index (for total industry excluding construction).

The vintage data tables for these economic and social time series are released approximately two months after the corresponding source tables were released, and from where the data are downloaded. For GDP, the release vintages correspond to publication dates after approximately 20, 45, 65 and 110 days after the end of the reference quarter. Currently, the tables contain vintages of data released since April 2001, starting with the January 1980 reference period.  

Since the structure of the Eurostat dissemination environment evolves over time, due to several reasons (methodological or statistical), the dimensions of vintages from the PEEIs vintage database will also evolve over time. Changes may reflect purely disseminated changes, minor statistical changes, changes in data production, and changes due to major statistical modification (such as major revisions in methodology, nomenclatures, etc). See 3.9, 4 and 18.5 section for a detailed description. 

For quarterly gross domestic product, Eurostat publishes one table of vintages, which is regularly updated. For the other two indicators, Eurostat publishes two tables of vintages, one consisting of vintages with revision dates starting from 2001 and ending in 2020, and another with revision dates from 2021 onwards. The first vintage table is static, while the second is regularly updated. 

The classification system depends on the specific indicator: 

• Gross domestic product at market prices (GDP): Based on the European System of Accounts (ESA 2010) classification. This is the newest internationally compatible EU accounting framework for a systematic and detailed description of an economy. The ESA 2010 was published in Regulation (EU) No 549/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2013 on the European system of national and regional accounts in the European Union, amended by Council Regulation (EU) 2023/734 of 15 March 2023.  From September 2014 the data transmission from Member States to Eurostat follows ESA 2010 rules
• Industrial production: The version of the NACE classification (Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community) varies in time: vintages released before April 2009 follow NACE Rev.1. Subsequent vintages follow NACE Rev.2.  
• Unemployment: For more details on classifications, levels of aggregation and transition rules, please consult EU-LFS (Statistics Explained) - Methodology.  

More details can be found in the ‘Related metadata’ section.  

Gross domestic product at market prices refers to the whole economy.  

Industrial production covers total economic activities as defined in NACE Rev.2 class B-D: Mining and quarrying; manufacturing; electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply. For vintage data released before April 2009, the indicator is defined as NACE Rev.1 class C_D_E: Manufacturing; Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply; Water supply; sewerage; waste management and remediation activities.  

Unemployment: not applicable

Gross domestic product at market price (GDP) is the result of the production activity of resident producer units. More details can be found in the ‘Related metadata’ section

The objective of the industrial production index is to measure changes in the volume of output at close and regular intervals, at monthly basis. It provides a measure of the volume trend in value added over a given reference period. The index is calculated in the form of a Laspeyres type index. Value added at basic prices can be calculated from turnover (excluding VAT and other similar deductible taxes directly linked to turnover), plus capitalised production, plus other operating income plus or minus the changes in stocks, minus the purchases of goods and services, minus taxes on products which are linked to turnover but not deductible plus any subsidies on products received. Detailed definitions of the industrial production index can be found in the  Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/1197 of 30 July 2020 (Annex IV). 

The unemployment rate is the number of people unemployed as a percentage of the labour force. The labour force is the total number of people employed and unemployed. Unemployed persons are all persons 15 to 74 years of age who were not employed during the reference week, had actively sought work during the past four weeks and were ready to begin working immediately or within two weeks. The number of unemployed is expressed in thousand persons. The duration of unemployment is defined as the duration of a search for a job or as the length of the period since the last job was held (if this period is shorter than the duration of search for a job). For more information on the monthly unemployment rate, please see the dedicated metadata file. 

For gross domestic product at market prices, the national accounts aim to capture economic activity within the domestic territory. They combine data from a host of base statistics, and thus they have no common sampling reference frame. The elementary building blocks of ESA 2010 statistics are statistical units and their groupings. ESA 2010 defines two types of units, institutional units and local kind-of-activity units (ESA 2010, 1.54). 

For industrial production, the EBS Regulation requires the use of the observation unit Kind of activity (KAU). 

For the unemployment rate indicator, the statistical unit is person. 

For gross domestic product at market prices, national accounts combine data from many source statistics. The concept of statistical population is not applicable in a national accounts’ context.

For industrial production, the statistical population comprises the observation units (KAUs) operating in the NACE classes: Mining and quarrying; manufacturing; electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply. 

Concerning unemployment, the EU LFS data cover the total population usually residing in Member States, except for persons living in collective or institutional households. While demographic data are gathered for all age groups, questions relating to labour market status are restricted to persons in the age group of 15 years or older. For more details and exceptions, please consult the Statistics Explained article EU-LFS - Methodology. 

The vintage data tables cover the European Union, the euro area, 27 EU Member States, Norway, Switzerland, United Kingdom (until 2020) and 5 candidate countries (North Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Türkiye). The collection of vintages started in 2001, when the European Union consisted of 15 Member States. Vintages cover the period from 2001 onwards. To maintain data as published, European aggregates must refer to the evolving composition, so that the euro area and European Union will always refer to the composition relative to the date of the vintage. Nevertheless, due to the requests of derogation to various regulations, introduced by several countries, or to some missing vintages, available vintages for some countries and indicators can start later. GDP vintages data refer to European aggregates.

The GDP table contains vintages of data  based on ESA 2010 starting from 17/10/2014, while the unemployment and industrial production tables contain vintages of data released since 2001. For countries that accessed the European Union and euro area after 2001, coverage starts from the accession date of each country in question

More details are available in the ‘Data compilation’ section. 

Data presented as indices are referred to a base year that changes every 5 years. These changes are simple re-references and do not constitute revisions, as growth rates before and after the change in the base year are the same. The relevant timing of base year re-references depends on the indicator, as described below:

• Gross domestic product at market prices: the Commission Decision 98/715/EC requires previous year prices and volume estimates to be presented in chain-linked series
• Industrial production: 

Table 1 - Base year evolution  

• Unemployment: not applicable

Depending on the indicator, data are published in different units, as described below.    

 Table 2– Unit of measure 

For quarterly gross domestic product (GDP), the reference periods are the calendar quarters.

For industrial production and unemployment, the reference periods are the calendar months. 

Eurostat’s revision policy is grounded in the European Statistics Code of Practice (CoP). It gives guidance on statistical release dates and revisions, for example for the indicators of CoP principles 6, 8 and 12.  

In 2013 Eurostat published the ESS guidelines on revision policy for PEEIs, containing the definition of vintages, a classification of revisions (although the terminology can vary depending on statistical domain), and explaining the need for revisions polices and analysis both at Member State level and at Eurostat level.

National accounts are compiled in accordance with the European System of Accounts (ESA 2010) which was published in the Official Journal as Annex A of Regulation (EU) No 549/2013, amended by Council Regulation (EU) 2023/734 of 15 March 2023.

Eurostat makes available non-confidential data on its dissemination website. 

Eurostat publishes the vintage data tables for Member States for the industrial production and for unemployment. For the agreement with Member States on this, please refer to the ‘Related metadata’ section.

Vintages only consist of published data. For details related to each indicator, please refer to the ‘Related metadata’ section. 

Confidential data are considered as missing data. 

Vintage datasets are updated monthly. They will include new vintages approximately 2 months after the first release of a vintages.

Vintages only consist of published data. 

For the calendar related to each indicator, please refer to the ‘Related metadata’ section. 

Release calendars for National Statistical Institutes can be found on the website of each National Statistical Institute. Links are available in national reference metadata. 

In line with the Community legal framework and the European Statistics Code of Practice, Eurostat disseminates European statistics on Eurostat’s website (see principle 15 – ‘Accessibility  and Clarity’) respecting professional independence and in an objective, professional and transparent manner, in which all users are treated equitably. The detailed arrangements are governed by Eurostat’s Protocol on impartial access to Eurostat data for users.

The vintages datasets are updated monthly.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Data are available in Eurostat’s database as datasets.  

The vintages (real-time) data tables for unemployment and industrial production are split in two datasets for efficiency reasons. The first dataset is static and contains older vintages; the second dataset contains the most recent vintages and is regularly updated. GDP vintages are included in one dataset.  

The vintages (real-time) data tables are as easy to use as the standard tables, with one important additional feature: they contain a revision date dimension that records the date of when the vintages were published in Eurobase’s website. 

The revision date dimension contains all consecutive dates starting from 2001 in the static tables and from 2021 in the tables that are regularly updated. Since the vintages are not stored in all dates, some empty rows can appear when data are displayed. In the Data Browser, users can select to hide empty rows under Format in the menu.

Not applicable. 

Not applicable. 

Not applicable. 

See section 11. 

For the quality checks and validation of data related to each indicator, please refer to the ‘Related metadata’ section. 

See metadata by indicators, please refer to the ‘Related metadata’ section.

The three PEEIs indicators are among the most important socio-economic indicators. Having access to vintages data tables enables economic and social statistics users to evaluate the impact of revisions on their estimates and econometric models (e.g. business cycle analysis and forecasts). It also provides the opportunity to perform revisions analysis - studying the magnitude and direction of subsequent revisions to published statistics.

No available information.

Some vintages are missing for industrial production and unemployment. Reasons may be different, for example a temporary mismatch of codes between published datasets and the vintage database. For a detailed description of missing vintages, please refer to the annexed files.  

Some vintages may contain missing values, for example when confidentiality impacts the last time periods.

See metadata by indicators (links are available in the section ‘Related metadata’ below). 

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

The vintages data tables are updated at a monthly frequency. The update is done two months after the first publication of the vintages in the corresponding source datasets. For example, vintages published in February in the standard tables are published in April.

Not applicable.

The comparability is guaranteed by the application of common definitions: from the European System of Accounts (ESA 2010) for GDP, and from the EBS Regulation and the EBS methodological guidelines (applied by the countries transmitting STS data) for industrial production.  

Concerning unemployment, monthly calculations are complemented with data from the DOM (départements d’outre-mer). 

Please refer to the ‘Related metadata’ section. 

Not available.

In order to get a series of vintages as long as possible, Eurostat has removed discontinuities in vintages due to changes in methodologies, definitions and classifications (e.g. new dimensions introduced in datasets or new datasets created due to changes in the national accounts from ESA95 to ESA2010 and changes in the economic classification from NACE Rev.1 to NACE Rev.2) or codes changed in some dimensions (e.g. codes changed for seasonal and calendar adjustment).

No information available.

Vintages are by definition never revised.

For information on the revision of gross domestic product, industrial production  and unemployment, please refer to the ‘Related metadata’ section.

Revisions practices of source data are specific to the three indicators. For information on the revision of gross domestic product, industrial production  and unemployment, please refer to the ‘Related metadata’ section.

The source tables depend on the indicator and unit:  

Gross domestic product at market prices:

• GDP and main components (output, expenditure and income) (namq_10_gdp) 

Industrial production: 

• Industry growth rates by NACE Rev. 2 activity - monthly data (ei_isir_m)
• Industry index by NACE Rev. 2 activity - monthly data (ei_isin_m) 

Unemployment:  

• Unemployment rate (%) - monthly data (ei_lmhr_m)
• Unemployment (1 000) - monthly data (ei_lmhu_m)

Vintages are stored at a daily frequency, to be sure that no changes are lost.  

Not applicable.

Please refer to the ‘Related metadata’ section.

Vintages are data as published on Eurostat website (with the same precision). They are saved only when there is a difference with a previous saved vintage (that is duplicate vintages are not saved). 

Please refer to the ‘Related metadata’ section for the details related to each indicator.

The composition of both European aggregates (i.e.  the European Union and the euro area) typically evolve over time. To maintain data as published, European aggregates must refer to the evolving composition so that they will always refer to the composition relative to the date of the vintage (reflecting the EU and EA composition at each point in time). 

The changing composition over the years are: 

• European Union:
  • EU15 from January 2001 to May 2004
  • EU25 from May 2004 to January 2007 (CY, CZ, ES, HU, LT, LI, MT, PL, SK and SI joined)
  • EU27 from January 2007 to July 2013 (BG and RO joined)
  • EU28 from July 2013 to February 2020 (HR joined) 
  • EU27 from February 2020 onwards (UK left)
• euro area:
  • EA12 from January 2001 to December 2006
  • EA13 from January to December 2007 (SI joined)
  • EA15 from January to December 2008 (CY and MT joined)
  • EA16 from January 2009 to December 2010 (SK joined)
  • EA17 from January 2011 to December 2013 (EE joined)
  • EA18 from January to December 2014 (LV joined)
  • EA19 from January 2015 to December 2022

The adjustment depends on the specific indicator and on the availability of the data. 

• Industrial production: Vintages are published as seasonally and calendar adjusted data for month-on-month percentage changes and as calendar adjusted data for year-on-year percentage changes and as both for the index.
• Unemployment: Seasonal adjusted vintages are published. Where available, LFS series adjusted for breaks are used in the production for monthly unemployment series.
• Gross domestic product at market prices: Vintages are published as unadjusted data and as seasonally and calendar adjusted data. 

Not applicable