Brussels, 26/01/2004 (Agence Europe) - Presenting the 2004 work programme of the organisation he has headed for seven months, Director General of Eurostat Michel Vanden Abeele told the press on Monday that despite last year's crisis (which, "I hope, is behind us", he added), "Eurostat has continued to fulfil its main mission, that of supplying the EU with a high-quality statistical information service".
Among the main changes to the way work is organised, Mr Vanden Abeele promised to tackle the problem of Eurostat's excessive dependence on external companies, by calling for an internalisation effort (reducing the number of outside contracts, internal reallocation of human resources, requests for additional posts). The Eurostat director confirmed that contracts have been stopped with two companies and two bodies, and announced that Eurostat has launched a call for expressions of interest (to draw up a list of statisticians with expertise to bring to specific missions), and a general call for tenders with a view to multi-annual contracts with highly skilled companies.
Mr Vanden Abeele also said that he had asked the Commission to increase Eurostat's running budget from 46 to 50 million EUR, as the European Parliament had decided whilst adopting the 2004 budget, he pointed out, to freeze 15% of the operational credit of this budget. He also announced that the new organigramme, a work in progress since 1 November 2003, will be completed in the next few weeks with the appointment of five directors. Among the other outlines for its new working methods, Mr Vanden Abeele spoke of the new distribution policy: efforts will be made to guarantee that all statistical data will be available free of charge to European citizens. "It is not Eurostat's vocation to generate receipts with sales of statistics", he remarked.
Eurostat's statistical priorities for this year include: -enlargement (1 May, publication of EU-25 aggregate, publication in February of the main economic and social indicators of the 10 accession countries); -EMU (from 1 May, press releases will be published an hour earlier at 11am); -assessment of progress made in social agenda (inquiries on work forces and European system of social protection statistics).