EUROSTAT
Directorate E: Sectoral and regional statistics
/ EUROPEAN COMMISSION
Eurostat
Directorate E: Sectoral and regional statistics
Unit E-4: Regional statistics and Geographical Information /
Doc. EUROSTAT / E4 / Min /2013
Draft MinutesRegional statistics and Rural development Working Party
Working group meeting for Regional statistics and Rural development
held in Luxembourg,
BECH building – Ampere
on 30.09.2013 and 01.10.2013
1. Introduction
- General information
Participants were the National Statistical Institutes (NSIs) of all the Member States (with the exception of Ireland, Greece, Cyprus, and Lithuania) as well as the NSIs of Turkey, Kosovo, Serbia and Switzerland. Also participated the Directorate General Regional and Urban Policy (DG Regio), the Directorate General Agriculture and Rural development (DG Agri) and the Directorate General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DG Mare) of the European Commission.
The OECD, DevStat, ESPON and the Committee of the Regions (CoR) were also represented.
From Eurostat members of several units participated.
1.1. Opening and introduction
The meeting was chaired by the Head of Unit E4, Mr G Schäfer, who opened the meeting, welcomed the participants and passed the floor to Mr P Díaz Muñoz, Director of Eurostat Directorate E.
Mr Díaz Muñoz welcomed the participants and briefly described the context of the subjects discussed by the Working Group.
Regional and urban statistics have an important role to play in the Cohesion and other policy areas with subnational focus. The economic crisis has had a very heterogeneous impact on the regions throughout the European Union. While the differences in social conditions and economic performance of the European regions became smaller in the pre-crisis time, the dispersion has strongly increased after the start of the crisis. The success of efforts of the EU to define effective projects depends on understanding the nature of the divergence and on measuring the exact type and extent of the social and economic impact. Statistics play a key role in this understanding but also in measuring the effects and the success of policy actions. The well-targeted focus of EU cohesion projects has a central place in the new medium term planning of the EU.
In particular policy makers but also the general public have an increased interest and awareness of regional and urban data. The 6th Cohesion Report is currently in the drafting phase and Eurostat has just completed its work on the 2013 Regional Yearbook and the connected on-line Statistical Atlas. Its focus is this year on rural development emphasising the importance of the cooperation not only with DG REGIO but also with other DGs with regional policy actions, such as DG AGRI but also DG MARE. Also the Committee of the Regions increasingly uses subnational statistics.
Mr Díaz Muñoz also pointed to new initiatives to be discussed by the Working Group, in particular the efforts to give functional typologies a more formal and possibly a legal basis. He also mentioned recent Eurostat initiatives to link geospatial information with statistics. Perhaps the most visible initiative is the creation of a European branch of the UN Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM). It will require a close cooperation with National Mapping Agencies on a national level with corresponding structures on a European level. The DGINS of 2012 in Prague had already focused on this aspect and the November 2013 ESSC will discuss the UN-GGIM involvement of NSIs. The EU finances relevant projects through grants.
Mr Díaz Muñoz underlined the importance of the Working Group meeting in discussing and taking supplementary measures in the interest of further improving the subnational statistics.
1.2. Adoption of the agenda
The agenda was adopted.
1.3. Minutes of the previous meeting and matters arising
The minutes of the previous meeting were accepted without further change.
2. Highlights and achievements for regional, urban, rural and maritime statistics: focus on communication
2.1. Regional Statistics Illustrated
Mr G Bartsch from Eurostat presented a new interactive tool to visualise regional data, which was launched on 23 July 2013. Regional Statistics Illustrated (http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/RSI/) contains more than 50 indicators by NUTS-2 regions, grouped into 10 statistical domains. Using an interactive map, individual regions can quickly be selected while different visualisation options allow comparing and analysing regional data in a user-friendly way. An animated timeline shows how regions have performed over time. The tool accesses the latest available data in the Eurostat database so that the selected indicators always show the latest figures. German and French language versions of the tool will be published soon and Eurostat is currently working on integrating data from the Urban Audit and other sub-national data into the application.
Comments:
DG Regio and the Committee of Regions (CoR) welcomed Regional Statistics Illustrated as a tool to increase the visibility and usage of the wealth of regional data available from Eurostat. DG Regio pointed out that the tool also offers a "storytelling" feature which DG Regio will use to highlight certain aspects of the cohesion reports. On the question from the CoR whether it is possible to download maps and graphs from the tool, Eurostat replied that it is currently not possible due to the software used but that it will explore ways to integrate such a feature. Replying to a question from DE, the Chair explained that licensing of the used software is not expensive and Eurostat is interested to share experiences and cooperate with the partners from the ESS to improve the tool. On the question from IT on the performance, Eurostat answered that no performance issues had been encountered so far. CH enquired how the indicators used in the tool had been selected and Eurostat replied that the selection was done in co-operation with the thematic units based on the availability and relevance of the indicator.
Conclusions:
The Chair concluded that ‘Regional Statistics Illustrated’ will be continuously enhanced with new data and features; Eurostat is looking forward to the feedback of participants on the tool, its functionalities and the selection of indicators.
2.2. Regional Yearbook and Statistical Atlas
Ms A Önnerfors from Eurostat presented the on-going work on the Eurostat regional yearbook 2013. This will be published on Monday the 7th of October and it will also be presented at the Open Days (European week of regions and cities, 7-10 October) organised by the Committee of the Regions and DG Regio in Brussels. The publication contains 15 chapters this year and 3 of them are new: "Focus on cities and metro regions" (a methodological chapter on city definitions), "Focus on income and living conditions" (presenting EU-SILC data by "Degree of urbanisation" (DoU)) and "Focus on rural development" (focusing on rural regions).
Statistics Explained (SE) has been used for producing the content of the publication and it has been online in SE since the beginning of June. The publication process and some of the principles behind the production were discussed and the participants were asked to give their opinion and to contribute with experiences with publishing their data in a European (EU) comparison.
The Statistical Atlas, an interactive map viewer, has been updated and the new version will be released on the Eurostat website next week. The new version will contain maps from both the 2013 and 2012 edition of the Regional yearbook as well as results from the LUCAS (Land cover and land use) surveys from 2012 and 2009. The difference between the ‘Statistical Atlas’ and ‘Regional Statistics Illustrated’, the application presented earlier, is mainly that the latter is based on live data feed from the Eurostat database, but the maps in the Statistical Atlas are based on the "static" data used to produce the Regional yearbook (Excel files) and on detailed results from the two LUCAS surveys (including photos).
Comments:
DG Regio inquired about the possibility to have the Atlas extended to show ‘grid-concepts’ (e.g. clusters). Eurostat replied that a configuration for geographical layers is being developed.
To the question of the Swiss NSI if there are any statistics available on the usage of the Atlas, Eurostat replied that it does not have this information yet.
2.3. Regional data dissemination
Ms J Pleijte from Eurostat reported on other recent developments in dissemination.
These include: The creation of a single entry point for all sub-national statistics in the Eurostat statistical database; The creation of new data collections for crime statistics by NUTS-3, by maritime (coastal) regions (demography) and coastal areas (tourism) and by DoU; Two new websites dedicated for DoU and maritime regions; The creation of a single entry point for all articles relating to regional and urban statistics in the Eurostat Statistics Explained and the publication of various new Statistics in Focus publications.
Mr Heiden from Eurostat continued reporting on the dissemination of Local Administrative Unit (LAU)-lists by presenting the new overview table attached to all annual LAU tables and explaining the enhancement of the LAU tables with DoU, Coastal/Non-coastal and City definition codes.
Comments:
In answer to a question on the involvement of Eurostat in INSPIRE, the Chair explained that Eurostat is following INSPIRE but other Commission DGs (JRC/ENV) are now stronger involved.
DG Regio indicated that he is happy to have all the regional data by theme but would also be interested to have access to all available statistics for a region. He pointed out that the available information on cities requires updating. Eurostat took note of the need to improve the city information and answered that the Regional Statistics Illustrated-tool can be used to consult various indicators for a region.
Poster session 1:
Ms T Brandmueller from Eurostat invited the UK and NL to present their posters; both linked to the subjects discussed in the morning. The UK presented the poster ‘Infographics tells a story’ and the NL ‘Statistics below municipal level: a new look’.
3. Policy needs and future plans for regional, urban, rural and maritime statistics
3.1. Policy needs and future plans for regional, urban statistics
Mr L Dijkstra presented the activities of DG Regio during the last year. These include the publication of the 8th Progress report showing, amongst others, that the impact of the crisis is uneven and unfinished and the risk of poverty and exclusion is growing. Mr Dijkstra explained that analysing the data for the report had been challenging due to the change of both NUTS and NACE.
DG Regio also (co-)published: ‘Assessing impact with a territorial dimension: Operational Guidance’, ‘GDP and beyond: Actions’ and the draft ‘Regional competitiveness index 2013’.
Additionally, the Perception survey on Quality of Life in European cities was conducted and various new data collections covering both official- and non-official- statistics came available.
Mr Dijkstra informed that the publication of the 6th draft Cohesion Report has been delayed until the beginning of 2014. He explained that DG Regio is active in the area of creating composite indicators. Mr Dijkstra continued to sum up DG Regios’ priorities for the future. The latter include: SILC, including territorial typologies into a Regulation, promoting bottom-up grids and population projections. He explained the status of the Cohesion Policy 2014-2020. No final decisions have been made yet and negotiations are still on-going. Mr Dijkstra presented the areas of activity in which EU Cohesion has invested in the past and the results of the Policy for the period 2000-2006. He pointed out the various reasons why the Commission is proposing to change the Cohesion Policy, specified the proposed budget for the period 2014-2020 and outlined the main characteristics of Cohesion Policy 2014-2020. More money will be dedicated to the ESF and the financial resources will be concentrated to optimise impact. A simplification of Cohesion Policy, a reinforcement of territorial Cohesion and an investment-oriented policy are also foreseen. Mr Dijkstra finalised his presentation by describing the new architecture of Cohesion Policy.
Comments:
DE pointed out that some western German cities also have big problems and asked where these cities can go for funding. Mr Dijkstra explained that the funding allocations are primarily based on NUTS-2 data, but that the use of this funding should also take into account issues at a smaller geographical scale. Three new tools have been set up to address issues at the more local scale (e.g. the 'community-led local development'-, ‘sustainable urban development’- and the ‘integrated territorial investments’- instruments). Mr Dijkstra added that one could ask the question if policy decisions should continue to be exclusively based at NUTS-2 in the future.
3.2. Future plans for regional, urban and maritime statistics
The Chair gave a short summary of the recent achievements and the current status of regional and urban statistics. Generally speaking the picture is very positive, however, users see still deficiencies mainly in timeliness and coverage/completeness of the statistics. While the timeliness will be difficult to address for a number of reasons, there is room for improvements in coverage.
Cooperation between the various partners is seen by Eurostat as the major contributor to success. This applies to policy related actors but primarily to the cooperation with Member States. The cooperation will have to focus on a further consolidation of the quality and in particular the coverage of statistics. Additional measures, such as imputations and estimations may in many cases be suitable to address the issue of missing values.
The Chair emphasised the intention to continue the work on urban statistics. The improvement programme currently implemented is on a good path. In both regional as well as urban statistics attention will be given to policy relevance and the support of evidence based policy by Commission DGs.
Finally the Chair pointed to some initiatives to add value to statistics, i.e. functional typologies, such as the degree of urbanisation methodology. He also pointed to the recent and continued efforts to communicate regional and urban statistics.
Comments:
DE pointed out that the present name of the WP no longer covers the subjects discussed.
Eurostat agreed to address this issue and proposed using ‘sub-national’ in the title rather than ‘regional’.
3.3. Proposal for a new legal base for territorial classifications
Mr O Heiden of Eurostat outlined the Commission initiative for proposing a combined legal basis for the common territorial classifications and typologies for statistics following a three level structure: (1) framework/basic act, (2) delegated/implementing acts and (3) methodological notes. The territorial classifications to be covered are: NUTS, LAU (Local administrative units), and the territorial typologies: Rural-Urban typology, Coastal regions, Metropolitan regions etc. as well as Degree of urbanisation (DoU), Coastal areas (Coastal/Non-coastal), Core cities, Larger urban zones (LUZ), Greater cities, etc. Three possible options have been presented to the WP. Mr Heiden stressed that the project is a very comprehensive undertaking and is currently in a very early stage. The WP has been requested to inform colleagues in the National Statistical Institutes and other relevant national authorities and to comment on the initiative and give feed-back on observations in the Member States in written preferably by the end of 2013.