Statistical Cooperation in Eurostat The European Statistical Training Programme (ESTP) European Statistical week, a study visit to Eurostat Statistical Cooperation in Eurostat Unit A3 Ms Claudia JUNKER Luxembourg, 13-17 October 2014

Outline How is international cooperation organised in Eurostat? What countries are we talking about? What are the goals of statistical cooperation? Why is statistics important? What is the role of statistics in the relevant political processes? Mandate for statistical cooperation and strategic documents What are the reference documents in statistics? What are the activities of statistical cooperation? How do we measure compliance with the EU acquis in statistics? How do we cooperate with the enlargement countries How do we cooperate with the ENP countries? How do we cooperate with the ACP/ALA countries? What tools can be offered?

How is international cooperation organised in Eurostat? Directorate A: Cooperation in the ESS; International Cooperation; Resources Unit A3: Statistical cooperation deals with three groups of countries, grouped per three Teams: Enlargement Team - Candidate and potential candidates (CC/PCC) ENP Team - European Neighbourhood Policy countries (ENP) ACP/ALA Team - African, Caribbean, Pacific (ACP) and Asia + Latin America (ALA) Unit A1: European Statistical System governance deals with international organisations and high income countries

What countries are we talking about? CC: Albania, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Island, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey Potential CC: Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo* ENP-East: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine ENP-South: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia ACP and ALA: no countries but regional organisations (ASEAN, AU, COMESA, EAC, SADC, ECLAC) * This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo declaration of independence.

What are the goals of statistical cooperation? Promote statistics and its usefulness in the partner countries Strengthen the statistical systems of partner countries, including the institutional framework Human resources development and training Strengthen the national standing of the NSIs Promote international comparability of the statistics produced - harmonisation with European standards Sustainable production of timely, reliable, objective and comparable statistics for relevant policies Collect and disseminate data from the countries Provide tools for the production of statistics and for cooperation purposes

Why statistics is important? Statistics is a public good Statistics is needed for evidence-based decision making both nationally and on EU level Statistics plays a particularly important role in the EU due to its use for key administrative purposes (own resources, agricultural and regional policy.) In a democracy, the use of evidence-based (i.e. with statistics) policy making is essential to ensure: Transparency Accountability Independency

What is the role of statistics in the relevant political processes? Statistics has a dual role in the Stabilisation and Association Process/the process of Association and Partnership Agreements and in the EU accession negotiations: Statistics is one chapter of the negotiation processes (enlargement, association, partnership) Serves other policy areas by providing data for monitoring the changes and assessing the impact of policies chosen

Mandate for statistical cooperation and strategic documents Pillars in the mandate of Unit A3: Support to the process of data delivery for EU policy purposes Promotion of EU standards Promotion of EU values Main areas of action for the three regions: strategy development; implementation of technical assistance programmes; peer reviews and global assessments; data collection; political process and seminars. Flagship documents – the Strategies for statistical cooperation according to geo-political regions: Strategy on Statistical Co-operation with the Enlargement Countries 2014-2020 Strategy for Statistical Cooperation in the ENP-East Region 2014-2020 Strategy for Euro-Mediterranean cooperation in statistics 2013-2020

What are the reference documents in statistics? The Statistical Requirements Compendium (SRC) The Compendium is published regularly (once a year/18 months) The 2014 SRC covers 8 priority areas, with 70 modules The SRC follows the European Statistics Annual Programme 2014 The European Statistics Code of Practice (CoP) Common standards on the independence, integrity and accountability of the NSIs Revised CoP adopted in 2011 15 Principles covering the Institutional environment, Statistical processes and Statistical output

What are the activities of statistical cooperation? Enlargement countries and ENP countries Provide services to other Eurostat units (filter of requests) To collect, validate and disseminate data To provide statistics for policy purposes To design/implement/support IPA/ENI regional statistical assistance programmes To advice on the design/implementation of IPA/ENI national assistance programmes To contribute to the political process with data, reports, meetings To monitor compliance with the EU acquis To implement global assessments and peer reviews and follow-up recommendations To organise high level seminars and meetings Developing countries To advice on regional capacity building programmes To host study visits/high level meetings to share best practices To organise workshops on ESS values and initiatives To develop tools for statistical production or planning development assistance To provide experience on the ESS model to other regional organisations To design/implement a pan African cooperation programme

How do we measure compliance with the EU acquis in statistics? Eurostat assesses the quality and timeliness of data submitted to Eurostat Eurostat carries out annual compliance monitoring (SMIS+) Eurostat organises independent evaluations of the national statistical systems (peer reviews, global assessments) Progress Reports Part of the annual enlargement / ENP package The Commission's assessment of the achievements by each of the enlargement/ENP countries over the last year Statistics is presented as a separate chapter and a statistical annex is included in the reports

How do we cooperate with the enlargement countries National IPA programmes and regional programmes for statistics IPA multi-beneficiary programmes (MBPs) for statistics – 56M€ for 2014-2020 The assistance under MBPs is guided according to the objectives set out in the Strategy for statistical cooperation with enlargement countries 2014-2020 Implementation instruments: grants and service contract. Activities financed: governance issues (e.g. the application of the European Statistics Code of Practice), management and dissemination, indicator development, wide array of statistical areas (e.g. macro-economic statistics, trade statistics, labour market statistics, business statistics, social statistics, agriculture statistics). Instruments for assistance: pilot projects, participation in meetings within the ESS, study visits and consultancies, trainings, traineeships.

How do we cooperate with the ENP countries? ENP South – advice on Medstat programmes (regional programmes) ENP East and South – advice on twinning projects with Member States Selected statistical domains, mainly related to EU policies Instruments: study visits, participation in meetings, consultations by experts, training courses, workshops ENP East and South – organisation of high level meetings (high level seminars, FORUM) ENP East – set-up of a panel on statistics (political process) ENP East and South – assessments of statistical systems and statistical domains ENP East and South – workshops on quality and CoP Involvement of member states and other partners (EFTA, UNECE) in the activities

How do we cooperate with the ACP/ALA countries? Increasing focus on Africa – particularly the African Union Elsewhere – all activities relate to regions rather than countries High level seminars on (for example) CoP, quality, SDMX Promotion and training of Eurostat tools (see next slide) The Pan African Programme for Statistical Capacity Building €17 million over 7 years Support African Union to develop its statistical capacity to monitor AU policies and the integration process Links to the international process to define new development goals, Africa must build capacity if they are to be measured

What tools can be offered? ERETES - compilation of national accounts data ESSENTIAL SNA - handbook on system of national accounts EUROTRACE - compilation of external trade data SNAPSHOT NSS - assessment of a statistical system GUIDE – handbook on the design of statistical cooperation projects

Thank you for your attention! Questions?