EUROSTAT
Directorate E: Agriculture and Environment Statistics- Statistical Cooperation
Unit E-4: Statistical Cooperation with European and Mediterranean countries /
Doc. MGSC/2007/07
Ninth meeting of the
Management Group on Statistical Cooperation
26 - 27 March 2007
Luxembourg, BechBuilding
Room Quetelet
Start: 10h00 am
Compliance monitoring 2006 and 2007 and main features of the future SMIS
Point 3.3 of the Agenda
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Introduction
Thisdocument describes the present state of compliance monitoring for the candidate and potential candidate countries. It gives a short overview of the 2006 compliance monitoring round and the timetable for the 2007 round. The document also covers Eurostat's plan for the development of the improved compliance monitoring tool SMIS (Statistical Management Information System).
Background information
Starting in 1993, the European Commission has progressively reoriented its strategy for enlargement in order to implement the recommendations of various European Council meetings on enlargement. In particular, the conclusions adopted by the Luxembourg European Council in December 1997 constitute guidelines for the analytical examination of the acquis communautaire in the framework of the accession process. It stresses an analytical approach to study the acquiscommunautaire for each of the applicant state taken individually. In accordance with these conclusions the Commission has introduced this analytical examination known as “screening”.
Eurostat has developed for this purpose the MS Access-based compliance monitoring tool SMIS (Statistical Management Information System),which has been used for reporting for the screening process and progress reporting as well as identification of gaps in the coverage of statistical areas for further development of the statistical system and design of assistance programmes. The original SMIShas reflected the needs of Eurostat, the applicant countries and other users of the system.
Nonetheless, the softwareapplication has become rigid and obsolete over time and Eurostat hasdecided to dedicate the year 2007 to the development of arevised SMIS, which would offer more technological and user flexibility. It should be available for the 2008 and future compliance monitoring rounds.
Objectives of the original SMIS
The primary objective of the original SMIS has been to manage the assessments and follow-up on the progress of complying with the acquis communautaire in statistics by the acceding, candidate countries and potential candidate countries. The original SMIS offers the production of comprehensive progress reports for the European Commission (EC), which are needed for regular reporting on progress of the EC once a year. The original SMIS has been an efficient tool for the follow-up on the compliance with the statistical acquiscommunautaire by the candidate countries during the entire negotiation process and during the follow-up monitoring process afterwards. It has also helped to identify gaps and problems of the national statistical system. These gaps can then be dealt with by technical assistance programmes of the EU and other donor organizations. The original SMIS has helped this way to foresee the size and scope of such assistance needed. Finally, the database can be also used by the NSIs themselves for their own monitoring of the progress in the development of the statistical system.
Functions and environments of the original SMIS
The main idea behind using the original SMIS is to administer the information about the statistical acquis communautaire, data requirements and the assessment of the level of compliance made by NSIs, independent experts and by Eurostat for each module in a structured and pre-defined way. The function of the assessment made by independent experts is not presently used.When the database is loaded with the assessments of the chapters, themes, modules of the Statistical Programme and/or data requirements, it is capable of generating progress reports.
There are two different environments of the original SMIS. The trimmed down version of the application has been tailored for the use of the external users to Eurostat. This version is actually the same version like that of Eurostat, but with limited functionality. It does not have the function, which deals with the management of the definition of acquis communautaire and management of the assessments. The decision that the version for external users is limited has been adopted in order to ensure that all external users receive the correct and official data from Eurostat. This also guarantees that the assessments sent back from the external users will be integrated smoothly into the application running at Eurostat.
The 2006 compliance monitoring round with the original SMIS
The last compliance monitoring round in 2006 was completed by Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey as well as all Western Balkan countries. The countries have delivered their self-assessments inMay 2006. The work on the self-assessments is very much appreciated by Eurostat especially in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro andSerbia, which have participated in the compliance monitoring for the first time. Unit E4 of Eurostat then distributed the self-assessments to the production units and received feedback from them depending on the level of involvement of particular countries in the work under different statistical modules. This feedback was then sent to the participating countries in mid-July 2006.
The 2007 compliance monitoring round with the original SMIS
The 2007 round will exclude the new Member StatesBulgaria and Romania and it will include Kosovo/UNSCR 1244.
Since the needs to monitor compliance vary among the various groups of countries as well as the state of development of the statistical systems, a differentiated approach needs to be applied.Reports covering all levels of statistical areas are necessary for the screening and negotiation process and therefore the candidate countries need to cover all modules including the data requirements part. The remaining countries are monitored according to the present needs for the compliance with theacquis communautaire.
For the 2007 compliance monitoring round, a contractor (Artemis Information management S.A.) has been selected to handle the administrator's environment of the database for Western Balkan countries. The contractor will also carry out the "helpdesk" function for the participating countries in order to overcome technical problems. Eurostat will retain the administration of the database for the Candidate Countries (see the following table), which will be required to supply the self-assessments in greater detail.
Countries participating in compliance monitoring / Administrator / CoverageCandidate Countries:Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Turkey / Unit E4 in Eurostat / All modules have to be covered including data requirements parts
Potential Candidate Countries:Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina,Montenegro and Serbia (including Kosovo/UNSCR 1244) / Artemis Information management S.A. / All themes and important modules have to be covered
The compliance monitoring exercise will be realized with the Candidate and Western Balkan Countries according to the following timetable:
-by end of March 2007: Unit E4 and Artemis will send the updated compliance databaseMS Access files to the countries.
-by the beginning of May 2007: Unit E4 and Artemis will collect theinput for the database at the module/theme level from the countries. Unit E4 will then distribute extractions from the updated SMIS database to the production units at Eurostat for checking the inputs.
-by the beginning of June 2007:Unit E4 will collect the feedback for the countries from the production units at Eurostat. Unit E4 will send to the countries the MS Access files with the input from the production units of Eurostat.
Information input into the SMIS from Eurostat
Updates of the information on data requirements and the legal basis are carried out once a year. Both parts were updated for the last time in February 2007 with the help of Eurostat's thematic units. The part on the data requirements corresponds to the information in the data repository eDAMIS. The legal basis is corresponding to the Annual Work Programme of Eurostat that is adopted by the Commission on yearly basis. For the year 2007 compliance monitoring exercise, the SMIS database is updated according to the Annual Work Programme 2007.
The legal basis can be also found in a publication “Statistical requirements compendium”, which is produced yearly with the help of the original SMIS database. It is a reference document containing the information on the acquis communautaire and data requirements in statistics for the European statistical system. The structure of this compendium is mirroring the structure of the original SMIS. It is based on the Community Statistical Programme in its current version (2003-2007), which is sub-divided by chapters, sub-chapters, themes and modules. Each module includes a description of statistical subjects, keypriorities for the year, legal basis, data requirements, methodology and international cooperation issues. This publication can be either obtained by downloading from ESTAT webpage[1] or it can be requested from the secretariat of unit E4 in electronic or paper version.
The main features of the revised SMIS
In order to cope with advanced technologies and to address the obsoleteness of the original SMIS, Eurostat has decided to develop a revised SMIS based on the previous experience. Eurostat appreciates the feedback and ideas that have come from the countries with the experience with the tool.
The revised SMIS will have the same following basic functions as the original SMIS:
1) Management of acquis communautaire and data requirements
2) Management of the self-assessments of the countries at chapter, module, theme and data requirements level.
3) The revised SMIS will follow the same strategic documents like the Community Statistical Programme. On top of that it will use the enriched eDAMIS version 2.5 as the repository of information for both data requirements and acquis communautaire. This repository will be also used for the production of the Statistical requirements compendium, which will guarantee the consistency of the information among the three sources of information.
The revised SMIS will NOT include one feature of the original version:
The category "Statistical basis" under each module has not been used in the past and therefore will be removed.
The revised SMIS will have the following additional features:
1) Probably the main modification will be that the revised version will not be MS Access-based as the original one. In order to gain more technological flexibility as well as more network use options a wider platform will be used.
2) The application will be web-based and therefore it will include the sharing option for several users. This will allow for filling in of the self-assessments directly by the product managers of the NSIs and Eurostat. The revised application will allow this on-line access only to authorized users, which will have to sign all modifications of the self-assessments in order to identify the authors of the texts. A close follow-up by the coordinating international relations departments and unit E4 of Eurostat still needs to be ensured in order to receive coherent results. The web-based application will also prevent any difficulties withthe transmission of the completed assessment files from the countries to Eurostat. This online assess will allow for storage of the versions from each year.
3) The new application will include a link to the legal acts in EUR-Lex, so that users are able to see not only the name of the act but the text itself as well.
4) At the module level, the "Compliance" field will be replacedby a quantitative assessment indicator at the data requirements level, which will allow for production of analysis of the level of compliance and completeness for themodule, theme and data requirements levels. This will enable the users to see quickly, where the statistical system needs most support.
The work on the application will start in the second half of the 2007. Eurostat will ensure by close cooperation with the future developer of the software thatfine-tuning and testing by the countries during its development will be possible. Any further ideas and comments are to be addressed to Anton Steurer , who will coordinate this project.
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