Brussels, 17/04/2012 (Agence Europe) - Using the legal system to boost the independence, reliability and quality of the management of statistics from the member states that are compiled at EU level - this is the aim of a planned updating of the EU Eurostat Regulation published by the European Commission on Tuesday 17 April. The changes to the rules were decided upon in line with the “six-pack” of economic governance legislation and will give the Commission the option of sanctioning member states that do not ensure full independence of their statistics bodies or the autonomy of those running them, in order to prevent any political pressure being exerted, or that fail to subscribe to “reliability commitments” for their statistics, whereby they pledge to fully respect the Code of Good Practice for EU Statistics and assume responsibility for the independence and reliability of their national statistics.
The changes aim to guarantee accurate statistics for use in making important decisions. The economic crisis has revealed the need for this, particularly facts and figures about the economy. Statistics should reveal weaknesses in countries' social and economic systems, measuring the impact of decisions by testing their effectiveness, explained Commissioner Semeta as he unveiled the draft legislation. He said it was important to have credible statistics that are seen to be credible by public opinion and the markets, in order to provide confidence in decisions taken at national and EU level, especially when difficult decisions have to be taken.
The draft legislation focuses on the independence of national statistics bodies and their leaders, who should be appointed in a transparent manner based on soley professional (non-political) criteria and who should have total autonomy in their decision-making and how they run the statistics bodies. The new rules reaffirm the independence of Eurostat, the EU's statistical office, as the central coordination and control body for the European Statistics System (ESS). The Commission will soon be publishing a decision reinforcing Eurostat's professional independence and institutional structure, along with its roles and responsibilities within the Commission. The reliability commitments for national statistics must be signed by national governments and the Commission. The latter will have the responsibility for ensuring they are fully respected. The new rules include measures to give Eurostat greater and safer access to the information it needs to draw up European statistics. (FG/transl.fl)