EUROSTAT
Directorate A: Cooperation in the European Statistical System; International cooperation; Resources
Unit A-6: Statistical cooperation /
Doc. MGSC/2012/02
Meeting of the
Management Group on Statistical Cooperation
22-23 March 2012
Luxembourg, Jean Monnet Building
Room M3
Minutes of the March 2011
MGSC meeting
Point 1.2 of the Agenda
2
Minutes of the 24-25 March 2011 meeting of the Management Group on Statistical Cooperation (MGSC)
1. GENERAL ISSUES
1.1 Welcome and adoption of the agenda (Document MGSC/2011/01)
The meeting was opened by Mr Pieter Everaers, Director of Directorate D External cooperation, communication and key indicators (Eurostat), who welcomed the participants.
Mr Everaers presented an overview of the main developments since the MGSC meeting in March 2010. In the last years, several institutions in the European Statistical System (ESS) have experienced reductions in resources. At the same time, the demand for statistics has increased, making strategic priority setting a key issue for most national statistical institutions (NSIs). Eurostat has been given the task to identify possible negative priorities for the annual meeting of the ESS Committee and this may also have an impact on cooperation.
In order to implement the vision Sponsorship Groups and cross-cutting coordination groups play an important role in improving the cooperation within the ESS, developing statistics and sharing best practices in a cost efficient way.
A reorganisation of Eurostat was in the planning phase, aiming to better incorporate the new auditing powers given to Eurostat recently in the area of public finance statistics, reflecting the increased focus on quality control and supporting the implementation of the vision.
The demand for timely and high quality economic statistics has increased following the financial crisis. As part of the new enhanced macroeconomic surveillance, a proposal has been drafted to compile an imbalance scoreboard with 8-10 quarterly statistical indicators. The majority of the indicators would be covered by existing data.
The first world statistics day was successfully celebrated all over the world on 20 October 2010. A follow-up could be organised in three to five years time.
The agenda for the MGSC 2011 was revised to include a topic on training under agenda point 9.1; Round table. The revised agenda was adopted.
1.2 Adoption of minutes of last MGSC meeting (Document MGSC/2011/02)
Ms Junker (Eurostat) summarised the discussions held at the previous MGSC meeting in March 2010. The main topics concerned the key developments in the enlargement process, information on the recently launched project to implement light peer reviews and adapted global assessments in the enlargement countries and on the procedures that would be followed in this project, an overview of the cooperation programmes including those implemented by other donors, the strategy for statistical cooperation with the enlargement countries for the period 2010 to 2013 and the respective IPA three-year plans, information on the 2010 round of population censuses as well as cooperation activities implemented in the countries covered by the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP).
Conclusion: The minutes of the 2010 MGSC were adopted without revision.
1.3 Information from the last PGSC meeting (Document MGSC/2011/03)
Ms Junker (Eurostat) informed the participants about the discussions held at the last PGSC meeting of October 2010. The main topics discussed were regional statistical cooperation in South-East Europe (this topic would also come up in this MGSC for its importance and relevance), the recent developments concerning enlargement and the population census, the strategy for traineeships and statistical cooperation activities. First experiences from the project on light peer reviews and adapted global assessments were also reviewed. The group discussions focused on the Eurostat vision and its elements that were relevant for the enlargement countries as well as on how to build up trust in statistics.
Conclusion: The MGSC took note of the discussion in the PGSC of October 2010.
2. recent developments
2.1 Enlargement process
Mr Wild (DG Enlargement) gave an overview of recent developments concerning the relationship between the EU and the candidate countries and potential candidates.
The accession negotiations with Croatia were in the final stage and 28 of 35 chapters were provisionally closed. After the closure of all chapters, the ratification of the accession treaty by all Member States would take at least one year.
Iceland applied for EU membership in 2009 and the opening of accession negotiations had started. The screening for statistics, Chapter 18, would take place on 2 May and 6 and 7 June 2011.
As regards Turkey, the statistics chapter was opened for negotiation in 2007. Further progress in the accession negotiations increasingly depended on a comprehensive solution to the Cyprus problem. Visa liberalisation was granted to several Western Balkan countries in 2010 and would also be considered for Turkey.
The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia became a candidate country in December 2005 but accession negotiations have not yet started. The Commission had recommended to open accession negotiations a unanimous decision of the Member States would be needed for this.
Montenegro became a candidate country in 2010. The Commission recommended that the accession negotiations open only after some key areas were further improved (including the application of the rule of law, judicial reform, the fight against corruption and organised crime). The next assessment of whether negotiations can be opened would come at the occasion of the 2011 progress report.
Serbia submitted its application for EU membership in December 2009 and the Commission Opinion would be published together with the October 2011 progress report. The Stabilisation and Association Agreement with Serbia has still not been ratified (NL pending).
Albania applied for EU membership in 2009, but had not yet been granted candidate status. According to the Commission Opinion in 2010, further progress would be needed in several areas; in particular, the political stalemate would have to be solved. The next assessment in this respect would be published within the 2011 progress reports.
Bosnia and Herzegovina had not yet applied for EU membership. A new government has not been formed following the elections in October 2010. The Law on the Population Census has not yet been adopted; consequently Bosnia and Herzegovina would probably not be able to carry out the population census in 2011.
The independence of Kosovo under UNSCR 1244/99 had been recognised by 22 Member States, but not by the other 5 Member States. Kosovo participates in the Stabilisation and Association Process. Facilitated by the EU, a dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina has started.
The Commission informed those gathered that the consultation for the post-IPA instrument was ongoing and could be found on the DG Enlargement webpage[1].
Conclusion: The MGSC took note of the information on the developments in the enlargement countries.
2.2 European Neighbourhood Policy partners countries
Ms Szczerbinska (Eurostat) presented information on the recent developments in statistical cooperation with the ENP partner countries.
For five out of the six ENP-East countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine) the most important development was the fact that within the framework of the Association Agreements, negotiations on the chapters regarding statistics had provisionally been closed. For Belarus, the Association Agreement negotiations have not started. The chapters on statistics contained the Statistical Requirements Compendium as a legal annex. Once the Association Agreements were concluded and had entered into force, the partner countries would be obliged to gradually approximate their statistical production systems to the acquis in statistics, in a systematic way, on the basis of an agreed time-schedule.
Some of the ENP countries had implemented twinning projects in statistics. The twinning project in Azerbaijan, implemented by Germany as the leading partner and Bulgaria as a junior partner, was well advanced and would be finalised in 2011.
After the successful implementation of the twinning light project, Ukraine had applied for a classical twinning covering several areas of statistics. The new twinning project had just been launched (February 2011), with Denmark as the leading partner.
Armenia and Lebanon had successfully applied for classical twinning projects and both projects had been launched recently. Denmark was the leading partner for Armenia, the United Kingdom the leading partner for Lebanon.
Eurostat was organising Adapted Global Assessments (AGAs) for the ENP-East countries. An AGA for Armenia had been carried out in 2009 and for Azerbaijan in 2010. The AGA reports for these two countries were already available. An AGA for Ukraine was planned for September 2011 and for Moldova and Belarus in 2012.
Regular High Level Seminars were organised by Eurostat for the Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia (EECCA) countries. This year, the seminar would be held on 21-23 June in Athens, Greece. The topic of the seminar would be 'quality matters in statistics'.
The Polish Presidency (the second half of 2011) would organise a seminar on the 'Development of the European Statistical System within the Eastern Partnership – directions and strategy' in Cracow, Poland on 18-19 October 2011 as the Eastern Partnership and the ENP East would be one of its priorities.
For the ENP-South countries, the Medstat III programme had been launched in April 2010 with an initial budget of EUR 4 million. In December 2010, additional funds had been made available (EUR 3 million) and the duration of the programme had been extended to the end of 2013. DG EuropeAid was implementing the programme under a contract with a consortium led by ADETEF, while Eurostat was contributing by providing technical advice. The sectors covered by Medstat III included agricultural, energy and migration statistics, social statistics, trade statistics, the balance of payments as well as transport statistics. The programme also contained components on training, dissemination, communication and visibility. Strategic issues related to Medstat would be discussed in the Directors' Committee meeting taking place on 13 April 2011 in Istanbul, Turkey.
Eurostat stressed that data were collected from the ENP-South countries on an annual basis and published in the 'Pocketbook on Euro-Mediterranean statistics' as well as in 'Statistics in Focus' and leaflets.
Ms Camastra (Italy) asked why rather few twinning projects were launched in the ENP countries and secondly, whether the Medstat III programme covered all areas of statistics. Eurostat replied that the requests for twinning projects were country driven. Twinnings were initiated by the countries on the basis of their needs, while Eurostat provided technical advice upon request. Regional programmes, like Medstat III, were appreciated by the ENP-South countries because its regional aspect was considered a major advantage and the countries had expressed explicit support to the continuation of such regional cooperation. The ongoing Medstat III programme covered only selected areas of statistics as its budget was much smaller than the previous Medstat programmes and a focus on priority sectors was considered necessary.
Conclusion: The MGSC took note of the recent developments in ENP-East and ENP-South cooperation.
3. PRIORITY SETTING (Document MGSC/2011/04 and MGSC/2011/05)
During recent years, setting priorities had become a key issue for the European Statistical System (ESS). The demand for statistics was constantly increasing while, simultaneously, many NSIs had experienced resource cutbacks. The imbalance between demands and resources had required Eurostat and the NSIs to engage into the process of priority setting identify efficiency gains.
Ms Junker (Eurostat) informed the participants about priority setting within Eurostat and the ESS. At the 2010 DGINS Conference in Sofia, Eurostat had proposed a new and strategy-driven approach to priority setting. Eurostat would make annual reviews of the statistical legislation and would propose a list of 'negative priorities' to the annual spring meeting of the ESS Committee. The list would include proposals of legal acts which could be repealed, voluntary data collections that could be stopped and areas that could be simplified. Negative priorities had already been introduced to Eurostat's work programmes for 2011, while proposals for the 2012 work programme would be discussed in May 2011. A second mechanism for priority setting would be the introduction of sunset clauses in new legislation. Legal acts would have to be reviewed when approaching the date set in the sunset clause, to decide on the need to continue the data collection.
The acquis was always a moving target, but now it could shrink as well as expand. A consequence for cooperation activities could be that activities already planned under future IPA programmes might become outdated if the relevant legal acts were repealed.
Ms Fransen (the Netherlands) presented Statistics Netherlands' (CSB) approach to priority setting. The objective of the CBS was to adapt the statistical programme to fulfil users' needs as far as possible within the given budget. In 2010, a revision of the work programme was done with a bottom-up approach, considering two scenarios for the cuts: -10% of budget (or FTEs) and -20%. The proposals for cuts were considered in view of
- the relevance of the statistics to society;
- their connection to other statistical domains;
- the feasibility of carrying out the cuts;
- the relevant obligations to national and EU legislation.
A particular challenge was to involve external stakeholders in the prioritisation. Ministries and other public bodies tended to add rather than to reduce the requirements for statistical data. The CBS assessed the priorities and at the end, 110 FTEs were on the list of possible cuts. At the time, the exercise was on hold.
Cuts in resources, both at Eurostat and in the NSIs (donors as well as beneficiaries), could have had an effect on international cooperation activities as well and had made priority setting necessary even for some international cooperation departments.
The MGSC discussed the impact of the reduction in NSIs budget on international cooperation activities. In Sweden and Denmark, statistical cooperation is funded by the national development agencies. As a consequence, the need to focus on priorities within the statistical offices had not had a direct impact on statistical cooperation. Experts from Statistics Denmark and Statistics Sweden were hired and paid by the development agencies to work on international cooperation projects. Hiring NSI experts and paying them through cooperation budgets could even generate useful revenue for statistical departments, which facilitated the search for experts. However, some Member States had found that the reduction of staff in the NSIs had led to an overall increase in the workload, which often made it more difficult to find experts willing to engage into cooperation activities.