Brussels, 11/02/2005 (Agence Europe) - According to the draft conclusions due to be adopted by the EU's Finance Ministers on 17 February, “the Council welcomes the Commission's communication and proposals concerning the strategy for budgetary statistical governance” (EUROPE of 29 December, p.7). The three main lines of this communication are a regulatory framework aiming to extend Eurostat's legal powers, improving the Commission and Eurostat's operational capacities and instituting European minimum standards on the independence of national statistical institutes.
The Council acknowledges that it is the “responsibility of Member States to ensure that their statistical institutes have sufficient resources to function effectively”. It thinks that an in-depth “exchange of good practices” would improve national statistical authorities' capacity for respecting high statistical standards, but that there is also a need to “establish priorities in Community statistical requirements”. The ministers also think that strengthening the operational capacity of the institutions depends on “more effective deployment of resources within the Commission budget”. Finally; they stress that Eurostat should have access to “all elements of national budgets as soon as they are available”, but that in strengthening Eurostat's powers, account must be taken of the advantages in terms of statistical quality and the “extra administrative burden this would create at national and European level”.