Archive:Eurostat yearbook
- Latest update of text: XXX 2012
Europe in figures — Eurostat yearbook 2012 provides users of official statistics with an overview of the wealth of information that is available on Eurostat’s website and within its online databases. It belongs to a set of general compendium publications and, of these, it provides the most extensive set of analyses and detailed data. Europe in figures has been conceived as a publication that provides a balanced set of indicators, with a broad cross-section of information, covering all of the main areas in which official European statistics are available.
Different formats, their language versions and MS Excel files of the Eurostat yearbook
PDF file and printed book
TheEurostat yearbook is released as a PDF file and on paper in English: the 2012 edition PDF is foreseen to be published in June 2012 and on paper in July 2012.
The virtual Eurostat yearbook
The most up-to-date version in English is available on Statistics Explained (part of Eurostat’s website) as an online publication, the virtual Eurostat yearbook. It is translated once a year into German and French. During the course of a year, the virtual English yearbook is gradually updated and therefore the virtual German and French yearbooks are sometimes not as up-to-date as the English one. The translations of the 2012 edition are foreseen to become gradually available on Statistics Explained by the end of September 2012. The three language versions of the virtual Eurostat yearbook are accessible through the short URLs:
http://bit.ly/Eurostat_yearbook, http://bit.ly/Eurostat-Jahrbuch, and http://bit.ly/Annuaire_Eurostat.
MS Excel files of the yearbook
The MS Excel files of the tables, figures and maps are available on the Eurostat website within each Statistics Explained article.
Related Eurostat publications
Pocketbook Key figures on Europe
The pocketbook Key figures on Europe (2012 edition foreseen to be published in June 2012) is derived from the Eurostat yearbook and presents the core content of the Eurostat yearbook. It is available in English, German and French both as a PDF file and on paper.
Eurostat regional yearbook
The Eurostat yearbook's sister publication, the Eurostat regional yearbook (2011 edition published in December 2011) supplements the information provided for the EU-27 and the Member States in the Eurostat yearbook by providing data at a sub-national level to give an overview of key statistics that are available for the regions of Europe. The Eurostat regional yearbook is published in the same formats and language versions as theEurostat yearbook (see above). The three language versions of the virtual Eurostat regional yearbook are accessible through the short URLs: http://bit.ly/Eurostat_regional_yearbook, http://bit.ly/Eurostat_Jahrbuch_der_Regionen, and http://bit.ly/Annuaire_regional_Eurostat.
Multilingual articles in Statistics Explained
A selection of Eurostat yearbook and Eurostat regional yearbook statistical articles will gradually become available by the end of June 2012 in Statistics Explained in 18 additional languages: Bulgarian, Spanish, Czech, Danish, Estonian, Greek, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Hungarian, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Finnish and Swedish.
Structure of the publication
Europe in figures is divided into an introduction, 13 main chapters and a set of annexes. The main chapters contain data and/or background information relating to a very wide range of Eurostat data. After a brief introduction, each subchapter starts with a commentary on the main findings, continues with some details regarding data sources and data collection methods, and finishes with a section that details the context of the information presented. The core of each subchapter is a set of tables and figures that have been selected to illustrate the wide variety of data available for that particular topic; often these include information on how important benchmark indicators have developed during recent years within the European Union (EU), the euro area (EA) and the Member States. Users will find a great deal more information when consulting Eurostat’s website, which contains subject-specific publications and online databases. The publication closes with a set of annexes that contain details of classifications, a list of statistical symbols, abbreviations and acronyms, and a subject index.
Data extraction, updates, coverage and presentation
Data extraction
The statistical data presented in the yearbook were mainly extracted during September 2011 although some were extracted a few months later; for example, most of the data relating to government finances were extracted in April 2012. The accompanying text was drafted between September and November 2011 (and in April 2012 for government finances).
The collection, processing and subsequent release of data to the public (either online as a PDF or database files, or on paper) is a complex process that results in a certain amount of time elapsing; this can vary from a few weeks in the case of short-term monthly indicators to several years for complex, ad-hoc surveys. There is a release calendar, which provides details of the schedule for releasing euro-indicators (a collection of important monthly and quarterly indicators), available at: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/release_calendars/news_releases. For other data sets, the metadata provided on the Eurostat website gives information relating to the frequency of surveys and the time that may elapse before data is published/released.
Data updates
The Eurostat website is continuously being updated and so it is likely that fresher data will have become available since the data was extracted for this publication. It is possible to access the latest version of each data set through data codes that are provided as part of the source under each table, figure and map. A description on the use of the data codes is given somewhat later in ‘A practical guide to accessing European statistics’/‘Access to data’/‘Eurostat online data code(s) – easy access to the freshest data’. The yearbook's MS Excel files contain bookmarks to the specific, tailor-made extractions that were used to create each table, figure or map.
Spatial data coverage
The yearbook usually presents information for the EU-27 (the 27 Member States of the EU), the euro area (based on 17 members), as well as the individual Member States. The order of the Member States used in the yearbook generally follows their order of protocol; in other words, the alphabetical order of the countries’ names in their respective original languages; in some of the tables or figures the data are ranked according to the values of a particular indicator.
The EU-27 and euro area (EA-17) aggregates are normally only provided when information for all of the countries is available, or if an estimate has been made for missing information. Any incomplete totals that are created are systematically footnoted. Time-series for these geographical aggregates are based on a consistent set of countries for the whole of the time period (unless otherwise indicated). In other words, although the EU only had 25 Member States since early 2004 and has only had 27 Member States since the start of 2007, the time-series for EU-27 refer to a sum or an average for all 27 countries for the whole of the period presented, as if all 27 Member States had been part of the EU in earlier periods. In a similar vein, the data for the euro area are consistently presented for the 17 members (as of January 2011), despite the later accessions of Greece, Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta, Slovakia and most recently, Estonia, to the euro area. Unless otherwise stated, the data for the euro area covers the 17 Member States that shared the euro as a common currency as of January 2011 (Belgium, Germany, Estonia, Greece, Spain, France, Ireland, Italy, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia and Finland).
When available, information is also presented for EFTA countries (including Iceland that is also a candidate country) and the candidate countries [1] of Montenegro, Croatia [2], the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia [3] and Turkey, as well as for Japan and the United States. In the event that data for any of these non-member countries does not exist, then these have been excluded from tables and figures; however, the full set of 27 Member States is maintained in tables, with footnotes being added in figures for those Member States for which information is missing.
If data for a reference period are not available for a particular country, then efforts have been made to fill tables and figures with data for previous reference years (these exceptions are footnoted); generally, an effort has been made to go back at least two reference periods.
Temporal data coverage
In addition to presenting the data for the latest year (or reference period) available, the yearbook often presents earlier year(s) too in its tables and figures; This may be either one additional year, a couple of years or a full time-series covering a ten-year period. The interval between the years presented in tables and figures is often restricted to five or ten year comparisons in order to highlight slower, structural changes.
Data presentation
Eurostat online databases contain a large amount of metadata that provides information on the status of particular values or data series. In order to improve readability, only the most significant information has been included in the tables and figures. The following symbols are used, where necessary:
Italic data value is forecasted, provisional or estimated and is likely to change;
: not available, confidential or unreliable value;
– not applicable.
Breaks in series are indicated in the footnotes provided under each table and figure.
Notes
- ↑ As Serbia was granted candidate country status on 2 March 2012, it was not possible to include it in this edition.
- ↑ The EU and Croatian leaders signed Croatia's EU Accession Treaty on 9 December 2011. Croatia is called thereafter an ‘acceding country’ (instead of a ‘candidate country’). Subject to ratification of the Treaty by all the Member States and Croatia, Croatia will become the EU's 28th Member State on 1 July 2013.
- ↑ The name of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is shown in tables and figures in this publication as FYR of Macedonia – this does not prejudge in any way the definitive nomenclature for this country, which is to be agreed following the conclusion of negotiations currently taking place on this subject at the United Nations.