09/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - Rules to reinforce data reliability get definitive green light. On Thursday 5 March, the Council approved the inter-institutional agreement on new legislation to guarantee the quality and reliability of European statistics (see EUROPE 11241). The regulation reinforces the governance of the European Statistical System (ESS), which aims to provide reliable and comparable statistics within the EU. Under the regulation, the heads of the national statistics institutes will not be able to either request or receive instructions from the national governments or any other bodies. Their appointment must be transparent and based on professional criteria. (MB)