Archive:Enlargement policy and the acquis in statistics

This article is part of a set of background articles introducing the international statistical cooperation of the European Union (EU) with non-EU countries and it deals with the EU 'acquis' in statistics and the role of statistics in the accession negotiations which are underway with candidate countries (Iceland and Turkey). Croatia has already concluded accession negotiations and is called an acceding country until joining on 1 July 2013. These negotiations concern the candidates’ ability to fulfil the obligations of EU membership. They focus on the conditions and the timing of the candidates’ adoption, implementation and application of extant EU rules, also known as the acquis. To facilitate the negotiations, the entire body of EU laws is divided into chapters, each generally corresponding to a policy area. For candidate countries it is essentially a matter of agreeing on how and when to adopt and implement the EU rules and procedures. For the European Union it is important to obtain guarantees on the date and the effectiveness of each candidate's implementation of the rules.

The acquis in the field of statistics

Before negotiations start, the screening of each chapter allows the European Commission and the candidate country to determine how well the candidate country is prepared. When negotiations on a chapter are opened, the Commission monitors and reports (to the Council and the European Parliament) on the progress in applying EU legislation.

Official statistics are part of the acquis (Chapter 18) and also form a component of other chapters since they allow screening and monitoring the progress toward accession criteria through yearly national progress reports.

At EU level, the Statistical Law (Regulation 223/2009 of 11 March 2009 on European Statistics) defines the basic conditions, procedures and general provisions governing official statistics as well as the division of responsibilities between the national and the EU statistical authorities. At national level, statistical authorities are the national statistical institutes and other statistical bodies in charge of producing and disseminating official statistics; at EU level, it is Eurostat.

The confidence in official statistics depends to a large extent on the respect of the widely accepted guidelines laid down in the European Statistics Code of Practice. The European Statistics Code of Practice sets out 15 key principles for the production and dissemination of European official statistics and the institutional environment under which national and EU statistical authorities operate. The Code of Practice reflects the United Nations' Fundamental principles of official statistics and the United Nations' Principles governing international statistical activities.

The acquis in the field of statistics requires the existence of a statistical infrastructure and includes the legal basis, methodologies and data requirements in different statistical domains.

The acquis in statistics is evolving. Therefore, the statistical systems of candidate and potential candidate countries must be strengthened in order to maintain the level of harmonisation reached and to incorporate changes in the acquis.

Statistical requirements compendium

Legal basis, methodologies and data requirements are presented in the Statistical requirements compendium. The Compendium summarises the key reference information for European statistical production in all the statistical domains:

demographic and social statistics;
macroeconomics statistics;
business statistics;
statistics on agriculture, forestry and fisheries;
multi-domain statistics (e.g. statistics or business cycle analysis, Europe 2020 strategy and sustainable development).

It also includes the acquis related to the support for statistical output (incl. quality, evaluation, statistical coordination and classification, data security and statistical confidentiality).

Outcomes

The candidate and potential candidate countries are expected to progressively increase the data collection and transmission to the European statistical system (ESS) in the framework of the EU accession process. Enlargement countries already provide a large set of data on a yearly basis which are disseminated through various channels:

the freely accessible public database Eurobase;
the annual pocketbook (paper version and free-to-view online version) with comparative tables and figures on a full range of thematic indicators with analytical text;
leaflets on particular statistical topics.

These data are used when preparing the statistical annex for the yearly national progress reports.