1. Statistical Cooperation with the EU’s Neighbours
Fourteenth Meeting of the MGSC
22-23 March 2012, Luxembourg
Agenda item 2.2

2. Who are the EU’s Neighbours?
To the East (1) :
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine
To the South:
Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, occupied Palestinian territory, Syria, Tunisia
(1) Eurostat sometimes includes Central Asian countries in ENP-East activities, when conditions allow: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekhistan
As a reminder.
Cooperation with Syria has been halted for the time being
In principle, Libya is considered as part of the ENP, but so far there are difficulties in identifying adequate partners for the type of cooperation activities offered by the ENP.

3. What is new in the ENP?
Communication from the Commission COM(2011) 303: A new response to a changing neighbourhood
Intensifying political and security cooperation
Supporting
- progress towards ‘deep democracy’
- sustainable economic and social development
Establishing Mobility Partnerships
Strengthening the Eastern Partnership
Building a Partnership for Democracy and Shared Prosperity in the southern and eastern Mediterranean
In 2011, given events in the ENP region, especially the South, there have been several Communications from the Commission and the External Action Service, the most significant of which is COM92011) 303:
A new response to a changing neighbourhood, sets out a renewed European Neighbourhood Policy with six core pillars:
Intensifying political and security cooperation
The Communication outlines how the EU will become more involved in solving protracted conflicts in the region.
Supporting progress towards ‘deep democracy’
Supporting sustainable economic and social development
Establishing Mobility Partnerships which aim to facilitate well-managed access to legal migration channels, and to strengthen capacities for border management and combating irregular migration. A major goal is to enhance the mobility of citizens between partner countries and the EU, in particular for students, researchers and business people.
Strengthening the Eastern Partnership
Building a Partnership for Democracy and Shared Prosperity in the southern Mediterranean
And Providing additional funding with clearer priorities
The ENP should be a policy of the Union with the Member States aligning their own bilateral efforts in support of its overall objectives.

4. How the new ENP will work
Greater emphasis on human rights, democracy and good governance;
Application of the “More for more” principle: differentiated approach to better reflect country needs, capacity and performance and to target EU aid where it can have the most impact;
Greater use of innovative financial tools;
Improved EU coordination through joint EU and Member State response strategies and more scope for joint programming.
1)The EU will follow the principle of concentration, which will enable it to overcome the inefficiencies resulting from sectoral dispersion and aid fragmentation. More focus should be placed on investing in the foundations and drivers of inclusive and sustainable growth and on supporting human rights, democracy and other key elements of good governance.
2) The next generation of external action instruments should enable the EU to pursue an even more policy-driven and result-driven approach, ensuring a consistent and coherent policy mix while allowing flexibility to respond to political priorities
3) In the development context, differentiation will be achieved firstly by allocating more funds than in the past in all regions to the countries most in need, including fragile states, while graduating countries become capable of generating enough own resources to ensure their own development.
4) In a very tight budgetary situation, all means must be mobilised to leverage and promote EU external policy objectives. The increased use of innovative financial instruments should allow a greater share of EU grants to be blended with loans or used in equity or risk-sharing instruments, to mobilise additional funding, including from the private sector, to cover the investment needs of our partner countries.
5) The new generation of external instruments will facilitate political dialogue, support negotiations and the implementation of existing and future agreements with our partners. In this framework, policy coherence for development remains a key priority.

5. What does this mean for the ENP-East?
Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreements: key to creating jobs, boosting growth and improving social protection
Association Agreements: with the aim of pursuing democratisation and visa liberalisation, enhancing sectoral cooperation, particularly in rural development, and working more with civil society
Applies only to willing and able partners: excludes Belarus
The EU sees Trade as a key to creating jobs, boosting growth and improving social protection in the ENP region. The plan is to improve the overall business environment, including negotiating ‘deep and comprehensive free trade areas’ and Association Agreements with willing and able partners.
The EU has committed itself to using Association Agreements to pursue democratisation and visa liberalisation, to enhance sectoral cooperation, particularly in rural development, and to work more with civil society.
AAs cover a wide range of issues, free and fair elections, tackling corruption, human rights, treatment of minorities, border management, migration, visa arrangements, student exchanges, etc.

6. What does this mean for the ENP-South?
Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreements: key to creating jobs, boosting growth and improving social protection
Bilateral Partnership for Democracy and Shared Prosperity : Based on mutual accountability and a shared commitment to the universal values of human rights, democracy and rule of law.
Covers institution-building programmes, close collaboration on migration, mobility and security, programmes to support agriculture and rural development.
Again Trade is seen as a key to creating jobs, boosting growth and improving social protection in the Mediterranean region. Here also ‘Deep and comprehensive free trade areas’ will be negotiated with willing and able partners.
Partnership for Democracy and Shared Prosperity is new, but not so different from the Association Agreements with the ENP-East.
It is based on mutual accountability and a shared commitment to the universal values of human rights, democracy and the rule of law. These partnerships will by offered to countries that are willing and able to commit to the universal values.
They offer new types of support for more sections of society, and introduces more incentives to pursue reform.
This means that for each country, progress and financial resources made available will depend on their level of commitment.
More for more principle

7. What does this mean for statistics?
Trade statistics become even more important in both regions
Association Agreements: include a chapter on statistics; - provisionally closed for all 5 ENP-East countries. - Association Agendas to implement the AAs
Partnership for Democracy and Shared Prosperity: - institution building → NSI - migration statistics a priority - monitoring implementation → statistics needed
More involvement of the Member States NSIs?
The AA chapter on statistics is accompanied by a legal annex containing the acquis (the Statistical Requirements Compendium)
The next step will be to develop time-schedules for the further approximation of the national statistical systems with the acquis in statistics
Also Association Agendas (action plans) should be prepared identifying priorities for action.
Partnership for Democracy and Shared Prosperity: This is still quite new so all the modalities are not yet worked out.
However it is clear that institution building should include building up of national statistical institutes. This was started under the Medstat programmes, but some aspects were hampered by political considerations, for example, on what data could be made public.
So we can envisage that the ‘more for more’ principle could mean more statistical cooperation for more publicly available data.
It is also clear that almost all areas covered by the Partnership will need to be supported by timely, reliable and robust statistics, to monitor progress, and as an element of democratic debate and good governance.

8. ENP: What can we expect in 2013 and beyond?
Current ENP instrument (the financial arm of the ENP) comes to an end in 2013
The European Commission, the EU External Action Service, the European Parliament and the European Union’s Council of Ministers are defining the new framework for the future EU External Action ( )
Financing for regional programmes for statistics for 2014 onwards is not yet secured
This legislative package is part of the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). It consists of a main Communication entitled ‘Global Europe’ and legislative proposals for nine geographic and thematic external action instruments following the architecture of instruments approved by the Commission in the Communication ‘A budget for Europe 2020’ issued on 29 June (ENP is One PART) COM(2011)303 ( A new response to changing Neighbourhood)

9. Eurostat and other EU activities related to Statistics in the ENP in 2011-12

10. ENP-East: Twinning projects & Adapted Global Assessments
Twining projects are currently running in:
Ukraine, implemented by DK
Armenia, implemented by DK and DE
Azerbaijan, implemented by DE, BG, LT, CZ
Adapted Global Assessments :
Ukraine was assessed in 2011
Moldova will be assessed in April 2012
Belarus and Georgia in September 2012
UNECE is carrying out similar assessments for Central Asia

11. ENP-East: High level seminar 2011
High level seminar on ‘Quality matters in statistics’
Held in Athens in June 2011
Looked at:
- Code of Practice as a Framework for the ESS Quality
- Quality management in a NSI
- Certification as a Quality management instrument
- Quality of Statistical Outputs and Relations with the Users

12. ENP-East: Eurotrace training in Russian
Eurotrace: Comext compatible software for handling trade statistics
- First time Eurotrace training was given in Russian
- Beginners course: December 2011
- Advanced course: March 2012
- Held in Kiev, for 19 participants from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan

13. ENP-East: High level seminar 2012
High level seminar on 'Quality in statistics: Metadata’
Planned for Tbilisi, Georgia, in June 2012
Agenda will include:
- the revision of the European Code of Practice
- a look at what the ENP-East countries have done in quality matters since the 2011 seminar
- the role of Metadata in statistics
- Metadata concepts and standards
- Tailoring metadata to user needs
- SDMX

14. ENP-East & Central Asia: Energy statistics
EuropeAid INOGATE programme: energy policy cooperation between the EU and the EECCA countries; includes a component on Energy Statistics
The main issues:
- lack of knowledge and expertise in the NSI and other relevant bodies; - existing data are not brought together in a single database;
- no consistent or common set of indicators;
- lack of awareness among data users.
Focus on the production of energy balances and consolidation of processes, so that this is institutionalised by the end of the programme.

15. ENP-South:
Twinning Lebanon: UK and Ireland Israel: Twinning expected to start soon
Medstat III programme
Launched in April 2010, extended to end 2013 (€7m)
Statistical themes covered: Agriculture, Energy, Migration, Social statistics, Trade and BoP, Transport.
Other Components: Training, Dissemination, Communication and Visibility
Implemented through Workshops, training courses, technical assistance missions, development of manuals and guidelines
On medstat III
A regional programme, implemented by a consortium led by ADETEF
Continuation/consolidation of work of Medstat II programme
Main Statistical work include : Energy balances and Energy efficiency indicators,
The development of tools for coordinated household surveys on Migration, Inter modal transport, Trade in services and Asymmetry studies
On training ….

16. ENP-South: Annual meeting with the DGs of the NSIs of ENP-South countries
The annual meeting between Eurostat and the ENP-South DGs takes place jointly with the Medstat III Directors’ Committee meeting.
These meetings seek to build relations between Eurostat and the NSIs in the ENP-South countries
Main concern is how to continue cooperation after the end of Medstat III
Exceptionally, there were two meetings in 2012 to work on the future strategy for the region
Also deal with the management issues of Medstat III
On medstat III
A regional programme, implemented by a consortium led by ADETEF
Continuation/consolidation of work of Medstat II programme
Main Statistical work include : Energy balances and Energy efficiency indicators,
The development of tools for coordinated household surveys on Migration, Inter modal transport, Trade in services and Asymmetry studies
On training ….

17. ENP-South: MED-HIMS
The ‘Mediterranean Household International Migration Survey’ is a regional programme of coordinated international migration surveys requested by the NSIs of ENP-South countries, via the MEDSTAT II programme.
To study recent trends, causes, determinants, dynamics and consequences of international migration, and the inter-linkages between migration and development.
The strength of MED-HIMS is the use of a common set of Model Questionnaires, manuals and tools covering the different phases of survey implementation.
Technical assistance to help countries prepare national strategies for the improvement of agriculture statistics (linked to the Global Strategy launched at the initiative of FAO and supported by the EC)
Main Statistical work include : Energy balances and Energy efficiency indicators,
The development of tools for coordinated household surveys on Migration, Inter modal transport, Trade in services and Asymmetry studies
On training ….

18. ENP-South: MED-HIMS Model questionnaires
MQ-1: The Household Questionnaire
MQ-2: Individual Questionnaire for Out-migrant
MQ-3: Individual Questionnaire for Return Migrant
MQ-4: Individual Questionnaire for Non-migrant
MQ-5: Individual Questionnaire for Forced Migrant
MQ-6: The Household Socio-economic and Environmental Conditions Questionnaire
MQ-7: The Community Characteristics Questionnaire
Also an accompanying set of manuals being developed:
M2 - Survey Design and Organization Manual
M3 - Instructions to Supervisors
M4 - Instructions to Interviewers
M5 - Manual on Sample Design
M6 - Coding and Recode Specifications Manual
M7 - Manual on Guidelines for Principal Country Report

19. ENP-South: MED-HIMS Implementation
The MED-HIMS will be implemented in two phases with the first phase covering the surveys in Egypt and Jordan in 2012, and Lebanon and one other country in 2013
The second phase will cover the remaining Medstat countries.
Funding for the surveys to be carried out in 2012 is provided by the European Union
Funding of support activities in 2013 provided by the MEDSTAT III programme, World Bank, UNFPA, and UNHCR.
Additional funding is being sought for 2013 and beyond.
Also an accompanying set of manuals being developed:
M2 - Survey Design and Organization Manual
M3 - Instructions to Supervisors
M4 - Instructions to Interviewers
M5 - Manual on Sample Design
M6 - Coding and Recode Specifications Manual
M7 - Manual on Guidelines for Principal Country Report

20. ENP-SEIS: Shared Environmental Information System
SEIS being extended to the ENP regions
Priorities for ENP-East: Fresh water, Waste (particularly hazardous), industrial emissions and greenhouse gases
Priorities for ENP-South: Fresh water incl. Water Accounts, municipal waste, industrial emissions to air and water
Eurostat working with EEA: - Seminar on Water statistics for ENP-East and Central Asia (Sept 2012) - Joint workshop on Waste statistics (April 2012)
Also an accompanying set of manuals being developed:
M2 - Survey Design and Organization Manual
M3 - Instructions to Supervisors
M4 - Instructions to Interviewers
M5 - Manual on Sample Design
M6 - Coding and Recode Specifications Manual
M7 - Manual on Guidelines for Principal Country Report

21. Useful links
COM(2011) 303
MEDSTAT III:
MED-HIMS:
SEIS project:
See also Statistics Explained on Eurostat’s website
Also an accompanying set of manuals being developed:
M2 - Survey Design and Organization Manual
M3 - Instructions to Supervisors
M4 - Instructions to Interviewers
M5 - Manual on Sample Design
M6 - Coding and Recode Specifications Manual
M7 - Manual on Guidelines for Principal Country Report

22. Thank you for your attention