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| Directorate-General overview | |
|---|---|
| Type | Statistical office |
| Headquarters | Kirchberg District Centre, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg |
| Directorate-General executive |
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| Parent department | European Commission |
Eurostat, or theEuropean Statistical Office (alsoDG ESTAT), is aDirectorate-General of theEuropean Commission, based inLuxembourg City. Eurostat's main responsibilities are to provide statistical information to theinstitutions of the European Union (EU) and to promote the harmonisation of statistical methods across itsmember states andcandidates for accession as well asEuropean Free Trade Area countries.
The partnership of Eurostat and the national organisations that cooperate with it is referred to as theEuropean Statistical System, a term enshrined in EU legislation since 2009.[1]
Eurostat was originally established in 1952 as theStatistical Service of the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community, then upgraded in 1954 toStatistical Division of the HA-ECSC.[2]: 13 It became theStatistical Office of the European Communities in June 1959, often referred to by its French acronymOSCE (forOffice Statistique des Communautés Européennes).[2]: 24 With the prospect of new member states making the handling of acronyms in multiple language increasingly onerous, the office decided in July 1972 to adopt the shorthandEurostat in all its publications, with effect on 1 January 1973.[2]: 69
As theEuropean Communities became theEuropean Union on 1 November 1993, Eurostat's formal name becameStatistical Office of the European Union.[1] Since 1999, as all directorates-general of the European Commission were granted an abbreviated name, Eurostat has been referred to internally asDG ESTAT.[citation needed]
The need for a dedicated statistical capability was identified from the very start of theEuropean Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). At its 14th meeting on 1 October 1952, theHigh Authority (HA-ECSC) decided to create a Statistical Service as one of its 12 initial divisions and services.[2]: 13 By the end of 1952, the service had seven staff members including its head, German statisticianRolf Wagenführ [de].[2]: 14
On 20 May 1958,Walter Hallstein, the first president of the newly createdCommission of the European Economic Community (CEEC), announced that a Statistical Office would be established to serve the three European executive bodies, namely the HA-ECSC, theEuratom Commission, and the CEEC.[2]: 23 The Statistical Office of the European Communities (French acronym OSCE) was formally created on 11 June 1959 by joint decision of the three bodies and absorbed a separate statistical service that had been established in the meantime by Euratom inBrussels.[2]: 28 The OSCE remained led from Luxembourg by Wagenführ as its Director-General, but over two-thirds of its expanding staff was located in Brussels,[2]: 48 in various buildings with several relocations during the 1960s. Eventually, in 1968, after the three executive bodies had merged to form theCommission of the European Communities, Luxembourg became the location for most OSCE employees.[2]: 30 An "outstation" of ca. 15 staff, however, remained in Brussels in theCharlemagne building until it was significantly downsized in 1980.[2]: 59
In 1968, the Statistical Office approved the initial version of theEuropean System of Accounts (ESA), its core set of common standards for government financial and macroeconomic statistics. Given widely divergent prior practices, 1975 was the first year in which all member states reported using ESA, which underwent its first revision in 1979.[2]: 82 Meanwhile in 1974, the first domain in the statistical database Cronos databank was installed, marking Eurostat's entry into the digital era. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, however, Eurostat was plagued by a mix of bureaucratic conflicts and the broader challenges of European integration in that period (eurosclerosis), compounded by an inadequate legal framework for the sharing of confidential data.[2]: 95
As with other aspects of European integration, the deterioration was largely reversed in the later 1980s under theDelors Commission.[2]: 118 A Commission regulation of 19 June 1989 established the Statistical Programme Committee, streamlining the process of managing the increasingly numerous workstreams involving Eurostat together with the member states' respective national statistical institutes.[2]: 126 At the same time, the status of the Statistical Programme was upgraded to a Council recommendation with dedicated budgetary resources.[2]: 128 In 1990, a new regulation on transmission of confidential data to Eurostat removed the longstanding obstacle to joint statistical work.[3]: 22 TheStatistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community, known by its French acronym NACE (fornomenclature statistique des activités économiques), which had been adopted in 1969 to inform the OSCE's own work, was made compulsory in all member states by regulation adopted in October 1990.[2]: 129 On 25 February 1991, the Council of the European Communities established the Committee on Monetary, Financial and Balance-of-Payments Statistics (CMFB), thus laying a framework for the hitherto largely nonexistent cooperation betweenNational Central Banks and Eurostat in the preparation ofEconomic and Monetary Union (EMU).[2]: 127
The CMFB established a workable division of labor between Eurostat and theEuropean Monetary Institute then theEuropean Central Bank (ECB): the latter was responsible for banking and monetary statistics; balance-of-payments and financial-accounts data was a shared area; national accounts and the price index remained under Eurostat.[2]: 142 A regulation to unify the measurement ofinflation was adopted on 23 October 1995, establishing theHarmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) as common reference. The establishment of EMU also gave unprecedented salience to the ESA as the basis for the calculation of theeuro convergence criteria ("Maastricht criteria") and theExcessive Deficit Procedure under theStability and Growth Pact. The ESA's legal status was upgraded to a Council Regulation, initially (EC) 2223/96 of 25 June 1996 known among statisticians as ESA-95,[2]: 140 replacing the previous ESA version from 1979.[4]
On 17 February 1997, the Council adopted regulation (EC) 322/97 known as the "Statistical Law", which further codified the member states' obligations, followed by a Commission decision of 21 April 1997 designating Eurostat as the sole Community authority entrusted with the production of statistics.[2]: 148-149 European statisticians started to refer to the combination of Eurostat and national statistical institutes as a "European Statistical System", even though the statistical law of 1997 stopped short of granting that term official status.[2]: 173 Later in 1997, theTreaty of Amsterdam (Article 213 A) included the first specific reference to statistics in theEU treaty framework.[2]: 139 ESA-95 was first fully implemented by member states in 1999, in time for the introduction of theeuro.[2]: 141
The dynamic expansion of Eurostat in the 1990s is reflected in the body's headcount, which, from just seven at the end of 1952, grew to 110 at end-1960, 220 at end-1970, 312 at end-1980, 388 at end-1990, and 639 at end-2000.[2]: 219
Eurostat was rocked by controversy in 2003, as its use of temporary staff and outsourcing of some tasks to external organizations, which staff unions had questioned since at least 1996, came under scrutiny.[5] In response, theProdi Commission in May 2003 removed three senior Eurostat officials from their posts, including longstanding Director-General Yves Franchet,[6] and a number of contracts with outside companies were cancelled. Eurostat appeared to have used a double accounting system to transfer money to bank accounts not monitored by auditors, and inflated the value of some contracts, with questionable spending amounting to around €5 million between 1996 and 2001.[7] No evidence was found of personal enrichment, however, and the malpractice was described as a response to onerous EU internal processes,[8] which former Commission presidentJacques Santer suggested was ultimately a consequence of the member states' unwillingness to give the Commission adequate resources to execute its tasks.[5] €1.2 million was recovered in 2001.[9]
In 2004, controversy of a different nature erupted inGreece. Following aparliamentary election in March, a new center-right government underKostas Karamanlis took over after 11 years of rule by the center-leftPASOK party. The new government claimed that its predecessors had engaged in massive statistical fraud to facilitate Greece's adoption of the euro and the financing of the2004 Summer Olympics inAthens, and produced alandmark financial audit exposing the extent of the malpractice. In response, the European Commission on 25 May 2005 issued a communication and recommendation on the independence, integrity and accountability of the national and Community statistical authorities, establishing a "Code of Practice on European Statistics", strengthening the audit capability of Eurostat to prevent a repeat of the Greek episode.[10] Apeer review exercise followed, lasting until 2008. The next year, Regulation 223/2009 revised the EU Statistical Law first enacted in 1997 and incorporated the Code of Practice into it, thus giving it force of law throughout the EU.[11]: 28
The effort to strengthen Eurostat, however, did not prevent an even broader Greek fiasco at the next change of government following the2009 parliamentary election and the return to power of PASOK. Shortly after the election in October, new finance ministerGiorgos Papakonstantinou revealed that the Karamanlis government, far from re-establishing sound Greek statistical processes, had dramatically underestimated its own government deficit figures. The revelations exposed an appalling lack of independence in the national statistical institute, theNational Statistical Service of Greece, which Eurostat had been unable to mitigate. This triggered theGreek government-debt crisis, which in turn morphed into a much widereuro area crisis that was not resolved until the later 2010s.
Eurostat subsequently published a report to try to rectify its procedures.[12] The European Commission proposes powers for Eurostat to audit the books of national governments.[13] This led to the revision in 2011 of the European Statistics Code of Practice by the European Statistical System Committee.[14]
ESA 2010, which had been in the works since 2002, replaced ESA-95 in 2013.[3]: 35 It remains the reference framework to this day.
| Name | Nationality | Term |
|---|---|---|
| Rolf Wagenführ [de] |  West Germany | 1952–1966[2]: 214 |
| Raymond Dumas |  France | 1966–1973[2]: 214 |
| Jacques Mayer | France | 1973–1977[2]: 214 |
| Aage Dornonville de la Cour [da] |  Denmark | 1977–1982[2]: 214 |
| Pieter de Geus |  Netherlands | 1982–1984[2]: 214 |
| Silvio Ronchetti |  Italy | 1984–1987[2]: 214 |
| Yves Franchet | France | 1987–2003[6] |
| Michel Vanden Abeele |  Belgium | 2003–2004[15] |
| Günther Hanreich |  Austria | 2004–2006[16] |
| Hervé Carré | France | 2006–2008[17] |
| Walter Radermacher | Germany | 2008–2016[18] |
| Mariana Kotzeva (acting 2017–2018) |  Bulgaria | 2017–current[19] |
Eurostat operates pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 223/2009.[20] Since the swearing in of thevon der Leyen Commission in December 2019, Eurostat is allocated to the portfolio of theEuropean Commissioner for the Economy,Paolo Gentiloni.[21]
TheDirector-General of Eurostat isMariana Kotzeva, former Deputy Director-General of Eurostat and President of theNational Statistical Institute of Bulgaria.[22][23]
The Regulation (EC) No 223/2009[20] of 11 March 2009 on European statistics establishes the legal framework for the European statistics.[24]
The amending Regulation (EU) 2015/759[25] of 29 April 2015 clarifies that heads of NSIs coordinate national level activities for European statistics and decide on processes, methods, standards and procedures of their respective statistics.[24]
Previous Eurostat regulations were a Decision on Eurostat (2012/504/EU), and the earlier Decision on Eurostat (97/281/EC).
The Eurostat statistical work is structured into Themes and Sub-themes.[26]
General statistical activities related to the European Statistical system are:
Currently, and sinceBrexit on February the first 2020, Eurostat data are aggregated at the EU-27 level, known as EU-27.[27][28]Before Brexit Eurostat data was aggregated at the EU-28 level, known as EU-28.
Since Brexit occurred on February the first 2020, data has to be computed for the EU-27 because by definition Brexit makes the UK a third country to the EU.
Nonetheless, to avoid confusion with the previous EU-27 group of 27 member states — which was used in the series of statistical data before the accession of member state number 28 — another name for the current EU 27 without the UK is defined as EU27_2019 in February 2019 and EU27_2020 since March 2020 according to Eurostat.[28][29]
The name changed from EU27_2019 to EU27_2020 due to a British constitutional delay which resulted in Brexit being delivered in 2020 rather than the initially planned 2019.
The concept of the EU 28 has been used since 1 January 2014, also according to the Eurostat methodological manual on city statistics, 2017 edition.
Local data are also computed at theNUTS level.
Eurostat is also engaged in cooperation with third countries through the European Statistical System, Enlargement Policy, and European Neighbourhood Policy.[30]
In 2021, European Statistical System includes 4EFTA countries, that is 3EEA countries and Switzerland.[31]
EU Enlargement Policy includes "candidate countries" in the process of joining the EU and other potential candidates.[31]
In 2021,European Neighbourhood Policy covers 16 countries such as 6 ENP-East countries — Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine — and 10 ENP-South countries — Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria and Tunisia.[31]
Thetrade and cooperation agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom — since 1 January 2021 — includes a provision on statistical cooperation that foresees the establishment of a specific future arrangement.[31]
The most important statistics are made available via press releases. They are placed on the Eurostat website at 11:00 in the morning. This is also the time that the press release content may be distributed to the public by press agencies.
Eurostat disseminates its statistics free of charge via its Internet and itsstatistical databases that are accessible via the Internet. The statistics are hierarchically ordered in a navigation tree. Tables are distinguished from multi-dimensional datasets from which the statistics are extracted via an interactive tool.
In addition various printed publications are available either in electronic form free on the internet or in printed form via the EU Bookshop. Only larger publications are charged for as printed copies.
Since September 2009 Eurostat has pioneered a fully electronical way of publishing, Statistics Explained,[32] like Wikipedia based on Mediawiki open source software and with a largely similar structure and navigation. Statistics Explained is not only a dissemination format, however, but also a wiki working platform for producing flagship publications like the Eurostat Yearbook.[33]
Microdata, which in principle allows the identification of the statistical unit (e.g., a person in the labour force survey or a company for innovation statistics), is treated as strictly confidential. Under tight security procedures various anonymised datasets are provided to research institutions for validated research projects.
Initially located with the rest of the High Authority's staff on Place de Metz, the Statistical Service moved in 1953 to a separate office building in theVille Haute at 29, rue Aldringen. In 1958, with its headcount having grown to more than 40 employees, the Statistical Division relocated to the former Hotel Staar nearLuxembourg railway station.[2]: 16
In 1968, with the relocation of many staff from Brussels, the Statistical Office moved again, while the derelict Staar hotel building was purchased by theBanque et Caisse d'Épargne de l'État and subsequently demolished.[34] The staff previously in the Staar building moved to the newly erectedTower Building in theKirchberg neighborhood, while those previously in Brussels went to the previous building on rue Aldringen and the nearby building across rue Louvigny, above the then-branch ofBanque Internationale à Luxembourg (laterDexia). All teams were then brought together in 1976-1977 into theJean Monnet Building [fr], erected in Kirchberg by the Luxembourg government for the Commission.[2]: 55-56
Between September 1998 and February 1999, all Eurostat staff, which in the meantime had been again spread among several location in addition to the Monnet building,[2]: 155 moved into theKirchberg District Centre complex in the northeast of the Kirchberg neighborhood, where the office space is known formally as the Joseph Bech Building.[35] Meanwhile, the Monnet building had become obsolete and was eventually demolished in the late 2010s, to be replaced by theJean Monnet 2 building. It is planned that Eurostat will move into that building when ready, a move initially scheduled for 2023[35] but subsequently delayed.
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... the European Commission proposed powers for Eurostat to audit the books of national governments
49°38′00″N6°10′11″E / 49.633320°N 6.169780°E /49.633320; 6.169780
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