1. Eurostat Management Plan for Regional and Urban statistics
G. Schäfer
Working Group Meeting 17/18 October 2017

2. Key political context issues
Following the European Commission’s White
paper on the future of Europe plus 5 Reflection Papers
2018 is the year for the proposal for the next multi-annual financial framework.
Decision where cohesion policy should invest
Which investment priorities
How to implement
Critical: Flexibility and Efficiency
Analysis and assessment

3. Cohesion Policy Funding 2014-2020
€351.8 bn
The ERDF aims to strengthen economic and social cohesion in the European Union by correcting imbalances between its regions.
Innovation and research;
The digital agenda;
Support for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs);
The low-carbon economy.
The ERDF resources allocated to these priorities will depend on the category of region.
In more developed regions, at least 80 % of funds must focus on at least two of these priorities;
In transition regions, this focus is for 60 % of the funds;
This is 50 % in less developed regions.
Furthermore, some ERDF resources must be channelled specifically towards low-carbon economy projects:
More developed regions: 20%;
Transition regions: 15%; and
Less developed regions: 12%.
The Cohesion Fund is aimed at Member States whose Gross National Income (GNI) per inhabitant is less than 90 % of the EU average. It aims to reduce economic and social disparities and to promote sustainable development.
It is now subject to the same rules of programming, management and monitoring as the ERDF and ESF though the Common Provisions Regulation.
For the period, the Cohesion Fund concerns Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.
The Cohesion Fund allocates a total of € 63.4 billion to activities under the following categories:
trans-European transport networks, notably priority projects of European interest as identified by the EU. The Cohesion Fund will support infrastructure projects under the Connecting Europe Facility;
environment: here, the Cohesion Fund can also support projects related to energy or transport, as long as they clearly benefit the environment in terms of energy efficiency, use of renewable energy, developing rail transport, supporting intermodality, strengthening public transport, etc.

5. Eurostat AWP context
AWP 2018 implements the extended European statistical programme (ESP)
Extension covers a range of ambitious actions to strengthen the capacity and flexibility of the ESS
Faster reaction to new demands, timeliness in important domains and new sources like big data and geospatial data.
Measures for higher quality and more timely statistics (10 political priorities of the Commission and political agenda of the European Parliament).
Linked to the United Nations’ indicator framework of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs.

6. Regional/urban statistics in the Eurostat Annual Work Programme (AWP)
Title of the item:
ESP detailed objective 8.1: Support evidence-based policy-making by a more flexible and increased use of spatial information combined with social, territorial, economic and environmental statistical information for regions, regional typologies, cities and the degree of urbanisation.

7. Detailed text of the AWP
A comprehensive range of regional as well as urban data will be provided to support the EU cohesion policy as well as rural development and maritime policy. The Urban Agenda initiative of the EU creates new challenges for the collection of detailed geographical data with focus on individual cities, their commuting zones and metropolitan regions, as well as the degree of urbanisation. Particular emphasis in the data collection will be given to the support of the SDGs on the regional and urban level and the contribution from geospatial information. The Regulation on the territorial typologies currently in the regulatory process will be applied in the operational work on regional and urban statistics.

8. Current situation of regional statistics
Smooth operational situation in terms of:
Information and dissemination actions by REGIO and Eurostat
Well functional cooperation on all levels (Member States, Commission Services and within Eurostat)
(Situation as last years)

9. Current key issues Last phase of the TERCET Regulation
Practical work on typology data sets
NUTS 2016 implementation starts
NUTS 2019 preparation
New data collection on cities has started
Some key regional subjects:
Island regions
Cross border regions
Potential Role of Labour Market Areas (LMA)
Some statistics are in question:
Population projections
Patent statistics
Business Demography
Next Census preparation

10. Thank you
for your attention!