Challenges for European statistics

The term 'European statistical system' has first gained importance during the last 10-15 years. However, the development of a statistical system at the European level started 50 years ago with the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community. European statistics has gradually developed during these years in close connection to the political and the economical integration at the European level. Official statistics in Norway has been closely linked to this process through the EEA- agreement during the last 8 years.

What's meant by ' the European Statistical System' ?

There is no plain definition of the European Statistical System but it comprises all the national statistical institutes and other actors that produce official statistics at the national plan. It also includes the European statistical office Eurostat and increasingly the European Central Bank. The countries that belonged to this system in the beginning were the ones that comprised EU-countries (now 15 countries), or the countries that belonged to the forerunner of the EU, European Coal and the Steel Community. The EFTA countries joined this process quite early. This co-operation is formalized through the EEA agreement that came into action in 1994 and according to this, EFTA/EEA-countries (now Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein) take part in the statistical co-operation almost at the same level as the EU-countries. During the recent years, candidate countries and to some extent some other east European countries are included in this European statistical co-operation.

Eurostat is a General Directorate (DG) of the European Commission. It has a central co-ordinating role in the development of the European Statistics and is supported by the Statistical Programme Committee (SPC - comprises the general directors of the statistical institutes). The Committee on Monetary, Financial and Balance of Payments Statistics (CMFB) has also had an important role of co-ordination since this committee includes representatives of the central banks.

The basis for common European statistics has been formalized both by a 'Statistical Law' (1997) and through directives and regulations that define the basic requirements for data compiled on several different subject areas.

The development of the European Statistics to meet the political needs

The development of the statistical co-operation at the European level in the last 50 years has been influenced by the requirements of the political and the economic processes. After the establishment of the Coal and the Steel Community in 1952, statistics was produced mainly related to these products, and also related to living conditions and cost of labour in these industries. The establishment of the European Community in 1958 has laid a basis for the further development of the statistics. In the 60's the focus was on the external trade and agricultural statistics because of the common customs duties and tariffs and the introduction of a common agricultural policy.

After a period of moderate development in the statistical co-operation and the European collaboration in general, a new era started in the late 80's in terms of the statistical co-operation. This was due to the new initiatives that led to Maastricht Treaty - the establishment of the European Economic Area and the establishment of the Common Market in 1993. The latter brought about considerable changes to the external trade statistics. Preparations for the Economic and the Monetary Union (EMU) that came into action in 1999, introduced strong requirements for the comparability of the statistics at the European level. It was necessary to compile such statistics to evaluate which country qualified for entry to EMU (Convergence Criteria). EMU sets further requirements to short-term statistics that cover new areas and of higher importance for the management of the economic policies. EU politicians have recently adopted an ambitious programme for the development of the EU (The Lisboa Process) that covers the areas such as competition, employment, social integration and environment. This programme depends very much on high-quality statistics to be able to compare the development in different countries in relation to the objectives that are set. Non-member countries like Norway wish also to follow the programmes that lead to comparable statistics at related fields.

New challenges for European statistics

European statistics is faced with considerable challenges for the coming years, both because of the expected enlargement of the EU and new requirements for statistics as a result of the European integration process. The increased importance of statistics as a basis for policy development and evaluating results also at the European level sets higher standards for quality, including coverage and timeliness. However, high expectations for statistics are not necessarily followed by increased resources. This brings in mind again the questions related to the role sharing between the national statistical institutes and the Eurostat. Abolishment of the national borders and the globalization of the statistics leads to a closer co-operation across the borders, one idea is to produce statistics directly at supernational or European level. This is a disputed issue requiring further elaboration.

Statistical co-operation at the European level is already very comprehensive with about 150 meetings of different working and expert groups each year. The increasing number of partners may make the system more difficult to manage and require increased resources and making it more efficient will be one of the future challenges.

Priorities for the development of the European statistics are essentially decided on the basis of demands related to the political processes at the European level. These may to some extent be in conflict with the national priorities having a broader user-orientation. This is one of the subjects of the meeting in September where Statistics Norway will have an introductory presentation on this issue for further discussion. It is emphasized that the official statistics should balance different user needs and also cover the needs of the public, students, media, business and research communities. In this respect, it is also important to have common and effective solutions for disseminating statistics to different user groups.

Improved quality

During the recent years, several acts were made binding, also for the EFTA/EEA-countries. This contributes to harmonization and better comparability between countries, in such areas as consumer prices, short-term statistics, structural statistics, labour market and wages. This also increases the value of national statistics and sets higher requirements for documentation and quality of the statistics that is produced. To work together in several working groups and projects helps people to compare experiences and contributes to develop better statistical products. Active Norwegian contribution to the European statistical co-operation thus has had and will still have a positive effect on Norwegian statistics.

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