DS ESAC > mission and mandate EN REVAMP

Mission

The European Statistical Advisory Committee (ESAC) was created by decision 234/2008/EC to assists the European Parliament, the European Council, and the European Commission to ensure that user requirements as well as the costs borne by information providers and producers are taken into account in their coordination of the EU’s statistical information policy.

The tasks of ESAC are to

  • provide an opinion on the multiannual and annual statistical programmes of the European Commission 
  • ‘deliver opinions and present reports’ to the European Parliament, the European Council, and the European Commission from the perspective of users' requirements and of data producers' concerns on costs for the production and dissemination of EU statistics.

The ESAC activities may cover all statistical domains relevant for the European Union. Topical issues may be discussed more in-depth with experts in workshops. In addition, ESAC co-organises biennially the 'Conference on European Statistics Stakeholders’.

Tasks

According to Article 2 of decision 234/2008, the Committee shall deliver an opinion on the European statistical programme addressing in particular:

  • the relevance of the Community statistical programme to the requirements of European integration and development
  • the relevance of the Community statistical programme in relation to the activities of the Community
  • the balance as regards priorities and resources between different areas in the Community statistical programme, the annual statistical work programme of the Commission, and possibilities of re-prioritising statistical work
  • the adequacy of the resources needed to implement the Community statistical programme, including the costs incurred directly by both the Community and national authorities and appropriateness to users' needs of the scope, level of detail, and costs of Community statistics
  • the costs related to the provision of statistical information by information providers and possibilities of reducing the response burden.

In addition, ESAC shall:

  • draw the Commission's attention to areas in which it may be necessary to develop new statistical activities
  • advise the Commission how to improve the relevance of the Community statistics to users, taking into account the costs borne by information providers and producers.

Rules of procedures

For further details on ESAC’s internal organisation, please see the  rules of procedures.