The purpose of ESGAB is to provide an independent overview of the European Statistical System as regards the implementation of the European Statistics Code of Practice. The ESGAB has been established to enhance the professional independence, integrity and accountability of the European Statistical System, key elements of the Code of Practice, as well as to enhance the quality of European statistics.

The members of the Board have been selected from among experts possessing outstanding competence in the field of statistics. The members perform their duties on the Board in a personal capacity and must act independently. The members from 2009 and 2012 were:

Johnny ÅKERHOLM - Chairman

Born in 1948 in Finland, Licentiate in Political Science (Economics), University of Helsinki and Master of Economic Sciences, Swedish School of Economics, Helsinki. In the 1970's he worked in the Bank of Finland and three years in the OECD, Paris. From 1982 to 1995 Mr. Åkerholm held various leading positions with the Bank of Finland, most recently as Head of the Economics Department. From 1995 to 2003 he served as Under-Secretary of State for Economic Affairs of the Ministry of Finance in Finland, and in 2003 was appointed Secretary General of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in London. In April 2005 Mr. Åkerholm took up his appointment as President and CEO of the Nordic Investment Bank (NIB).

Among his other tasks Mr Åkerholm has also been President of the Economic and Financial Committee of the European Union and President of the Nordic-Baltic Monetary and Financial Committee. He has acted as Chairman of the Inter-institutional Monitoring Group for financial services, with a mandate to assess the progress made on implementing the “Lamfalussy process”, aiming to create a more efficient system for the EU institutions to prepare, adopt and implement new legislation to integrate financial markets.

Sir Tony ATKINSON

Born in 1944 in Wales, Sir Tony Atkinson graduated in economics at the University of Cambridge. He has been a university teacher since 1967, and has held positions at the Universities of Cambridge, Essex, Oxford, and at the London School of Economics and University College London. From 1994 to 2005, he was Warden of Nuffield College, Oxford. He is currently Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics and F W Taussig Visiting Professor, Harvard University.

He has been President of the Royal Economic Society, of the Econometric Society, of the European Economic Association and of the International Economic Association.   He has served in the UK on the Royal Commission on the Distribution of Income and Wealth, the Pension Law Review Committee, and the Commission on Social Justice.  He was responsible for the Atkinson Review of Measurement of Government Output. He has been a member of the Conseil d’Analyse Economique.

Jean-Michel CHARPIN

Born in 1949 in France and trained as a statistician and an economist, he was Director General of National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) for almost five years from 2003 to 2007. His experience includes periods at the European Commission in 1980-81, with Banque Nationale de Paris (BNP) in 1990-97 and in economic research. He is a former president of the French Economic Association from 2008 to 2009 and of the French Association of Asset and Liability Managers 1995-97. He has also been a professor of Economics at Ecole centrale in1977-82 and of International Economics at Ecole nationale d'administration (ENA) in 1988-91.
In 2004-05, he chaired the Task Force which drafted the European Statistics Code of Practice.
At present Mr Charpin is a French "inspecteur général des finances". He is also a member of the Pensions Council and of the French Academy of Technology.

Margit EPLER

Born in 1950 in Germany Ms Epler holds a Masters degree in statistics from Vienna university. Since 1979 she has been  employed by the Federal Chamber of Labour of Austria, department of economic research and statistics. At present she is Chief statistician and editor of the annual statistical publication “Wirtschafts- und Sozialstatistisches Taschenbuch”. She is in charge of development and implementation of an integrated statistical online system with central storage of data, flexible queries and publishing on demand.
1994 – 2008 Ms Epler was active in the European Advisory Committee on Statistical Information in the Economic and Social Spheres (CEIES), a Chairperson of the Subcommittee on Social Statistics and a member of the CEIES-bureau. She was Vice-president of CEIES in 2005-08 and an organizer and promoter of many CEIES seminars in the statistical field. In Austria, she was a member of the Governmental Commission “Statistical Council” at Statistics Austria in 2000-09. Furthermore, she was Chairperson of the Subcommittee on Social Statistics in the Austrian Statistical Society (OeSG) as well as a member of the board 1997 – 2009 and its president since October 2010. She is also a member of the International Statistical Institute (ISI).

Johann HAHLEN

Born in 1942 in Germany. After completing his law studies, Johann Hahlen worked as a lawyer. In 1972, he joined the Federal Ministry of the Interior where he worked in various functions. On temporary leave from the Ministry, he worked for the CDU/CSU Bundestag parliamentary group. Between 1992 and 1995, he was Head of the Sub-Directorate for Constitutional Law at the Federal Ministry of the Interior. In late 1995, Mr. Hahlen was appointed President of the Federal Statistical Office. He held this office until October 2006. During that time, he also acted as Federal Returning Officer. Until his retirement at the end of December 2007, he served as State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of the Interior.

Karin MOSSLER

Born 1955 in Sweden. Ms Mossler has been a Deputy Director at the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs since 2010. She has a Master of Science in Engineering degree in technical physics (1975-1979), oriented towards applied mathematics and a Bachelor’s degree, including economics and sociology. She was a member of The European Advisory Committee on Statistical Information in the Economic and Social Spheres, CEIES, and of the Subcommittee on Social Statistics (2005-2008).
For many years Ms Mossler was a chief economist at the National Board of Health and Welfare (1993-2009), where she was actively involved in the development and improvement of economic statistics and statistics on welfare. Ms Mossler has worked at Ericsson (1979-80), in the Ministry of Industry (1981-1982), Ministry of Finance (1982-1989) and in Statistics Sweden (1989-1993). She has been a member of several statistical councils at Statistics Sweden and of the board of Statistics Sweden’s Consumer Price Index (2000-2009). The board works on methodological issues concerning the consumer price index. As an expert advisor on several national commissions, she has used statistics for a variety of analytical purposes. She has also been a member of the Swedish Linköping University Board (1994-2000).

Edvard OUTRATA

Born in 1936 Mr Outrata graduated in economics from the Economic University, Prague. He worked at Statistics Canada 1969-93 as Director of System Development, and Director General of Informatics. In 1993 he returned to his native Czech Republic and served as a President of the Czech Statistical Office until 1999. In this position he was responsible for the transformation of Czech official statistics after the fall of communism in the country. This included the adoption of international standards and defining the position of the Czech Statistical Office in the administrative hierarchy of the Republic (drafting and implementation of the Statistics Act, etc.). Subsequently, he was responsible for the entry of the Czech Republic into OECD and the preparation of its entry into the EU (closing the statistics chapter of the entry negotiations).
Later, he served as Senator of the Parliament of the Czech Republic from 2000 to 2006 and its Deputy Speaker 2004-06. Mr Outrata is member of the Czech Statistical Council.

ESGAB with observers Mr Radermacher, Director General of Eurostat (left), Ms Bohatá, Deputy Director General of Eurostat (middle) and Ms Lehtimäki, secretary of the Board (right)