Brussels, 06/06/2005 (Agence Europe) - In its draft conclusions on improved statistical governance, to be adopted on Tuesday by the Ecofin Council, the finance ministers of the EU welcomed the proposed regulation on the quality of statistical data as part of the excessive deficit procedure. This plank of the Commission's strategy on statistics, which the Commission adopted in March (EUROPE 8900), aims to boost Eurostat's financial and human resources, along with various of its powers, but has no plans to allow the European statistical office to carry out audits of national accounts, although it does authorise inspection visits to national statistical institutes. The ministers' conclusions stated that these "methodological visits" should be "limited to the national authorities tasked with reporting on the excessive deficit procedure" and be carried out in "close collaboration" with bodies such as the economic and financial committee. Assessments will focus in particular on "delimiting the governmental sector, classifying the government's transactions and liabilities and the time at which they were registered". The conclusions indicate that there are still many things to be discussed relating to "statistical confidentiality". The visits can take place only when there are "identified risks or potential problems with methods, concepts or classification of data, which the member states are supposed to notify". In case of doubt, Eurostat must inform the Member State concerned, three working days before the publication of the assessment, instead of five days in the Commission's current proposal.
Another part of the draft conclusions relates to the code of conduct proposed by the Commission last May (EUROPE 8954) to improve the independence and integrity of the national statistics institutes and of Eurostat. According to ministers, the capacity of national statistical institutes to achieve higher standards depends largely on the possibility of establishing priorities in the EU's requests for statistics. They call on the EFC, Eurostat and the ECB to present an updated summary of the reordering of priorities by December. The details of the implementation of the code of conduct must be specified, state the ministers, who support a gradual assessment, to be carried out over three years, by the Member State in question and its peers. The role, powers and composition of a high-level consultative group, which the Commission proposes to set up to oversee the statistical governance of the European system, must also be bolstered.