1. Management Group on Statistical Cooperation 20-21 March 2014, Luxembourg
Recent developments concerning the ENP countries
Michele Schivazappa and Jolanta Szczerbinska
Point 2.2 of the Agenda

2. Reminder: Who are the EU’s Neighbours?
To the East (1) :
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine
To the South:
Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Libya, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, occupied Palestinian territory, Syria and Tunisia
(1) Eurostat sometimes includes Central Asian countries in ENP-East activities, when conditions allow: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan

3. European Neighbourhood Instrument: Current status (1)
New European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENI) politically agreed between EP, Council and EC (budget for =15.4 billion)
More funds compared to ENPI but less than Commission asked
EP is consulted in broad terms (more influence on programming)
Need for an implementing regulation, in spring 2014
Programming for 2014 will be tight

4. European Neighbourhood Instrument: Current status (2)
Principles of "more for more" and increased differentiation
Better coherence between policies and assistance
Smaller number of more focused priorities
More flexible and simplified programming
3 types of support to the Neighbourhood:
Bilateral support (mainly direct budget support, 2/3 of the funds)
Multi-country support (interregional, regional East programme, regional South programme)
Cross-border cooperation
Country strategy papers – 3 sectors form the ENP action plan to be chosen by each country (=more focused approach)
Horizontal strategy papers

5. ENP-East: Association Agreements
Association Agreement – includes a Chapter on Statistics, with alignment to the acquis as the long term goal
Out of five eligible countries only Georgia and Moldova signed the Association Agreement and Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) in November 2013
Armenia – chose to join the customs union with Russia
Ukraine – political situation not clear, orientation towards EU or Russia
Azerbaijan – issues related to human rights and democracy
Belarus – no negotiations but are part of the Eastern partnership

6. ENP-East: Association Agendas
Each Association Agreement is implemented by an Association AGENDA
Association Agenda – 3 year Action plan to implement the Association Agreements, starting in 2014
Actions to have a deadline for implementation
Some EU bilateral financial assistance will be available to help implementation, e.g. technical assistance (Twinning, TAIEX), budget support

7. Eastern Partnership Regional approach Establishment of 4 platforms
Democracy, good governance and stability
Economic integration and convergence with EU policies
Energy security
Contacts between people
Mobility Partnership
Sector cooperation

8. ENP-South
Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreements: The Council approved negotiating directives for DCFTAs with Morocco, Jordan, Egypt and Tunisia in Dec 2011.
- dialog with Egypt restarted in Feb 2014
- preparatory process meetings with Jordan
- Trade Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA) with Morocco and Tunisia were carried out in 2013.

9. Union for the Mediterranean
Since 2012 EU took over the Northern Presidency and Jordan took over the Southern Presidency;
Priority areas: business development, Transport & urban development, Energy, Water & environment, Higher Education and Research, social and civil affairs
Last projects launched: water & environment and business development.

10. What is Eurostat doing – ENP East?
A new strategy for statistical cooperation in the ENP-East is finalised
Continuing the high level seminars on quality and management issues
Organising a limited number of training courses
Following up on Adapted Global Assessments, launching Sectoral Reviews
Promotion of a regional approach for the ENP east countries
Trying to establish a sub-panel to bring together MS and ENP East countries to prove the willingness to work together on regional level
TAIEX funded seminar for enlargement and ENP East countries on use of administrative data for official statistics

11. What is Eurostat doing – ENP East?
Training courses for the ENP-East region in the years :
1. Quality Management in Statistical Agencies (2013)
2. Statistical Metadata (2013)
3. User Friendly Dissemination of Statistics (2014)
4. National Accounts (2014)
5. Structural Business Statistics (2014)
Some additional courses on SDMX and metadata exchange

12. What is Eurostat doing – ENP East? (2)
Training courses provided by EFTA in coordination with Eurostat
Dissemination of Statistics & PC-Axis; also enlargement countries participated (2013)
Advanced methods of survey sampling (2014)
Use of administrative registers in production of statistics; also Central Asia participates (2014)

13. What is Eurostat doing – ENP South?
MEDSTAT III was finalised at the end of 2013
TAIEX funded conference for the ENP South countries (Oct. 2013) on "Statistics and evidence based decision making"
An AGA of the Tunisian system was carried out in November 2013 and February 2014
Held a Workshop on European Statistic Code of Practice in mid-March 2014 (Rome)
Post medstat strategy
Results of CoP presented later on
Results of Tunisian AGA

14. What is Eurostat doing – ENP South?
Offering peer reviews, global assessments, sectorial reviews
Training courses over the next two years:
SDMX - Statistical Data and Metadata eXchange
Presentation and facilitation skills for statistical trainers
Statistical Metadata
Non-response in household surveys
National Accounts – Basic course
Structural Business Statistics
Training courses provided by EFTA in coordination with Eurostat
Price statistics and indices, also enlargement countries participated (2013)
Post medstat strategy
Results of CoP presented later on
Results of Tunisian AGA

15. Other activities related to statistics in the ENP-East
INOGATE:
a EuropeAid programme with a component on Energy Stats
Covers ENP-East, Turkey and Central Asia
Action plans for each country developed and assistance provided to implement the plans
3 Awareness-raising International Conferences are planned
1) “Strategic Role of Energy Statistics in National and International Policies” in Copenhagen, April 2013
2) Quality of energy statistics
3) Achievements of the national action plans

16. Other activities related to statistics in both ENP regions
ENPI-SEIS :
EuropeAid cooperation programme to develop a Shared Environmental Information System
Includes a component on developing Environment Statistics
Priorities for ENP: Fresh water, Wastes (hazardous for ENP East and municipal for ENP-South) and Air pollution
Priority for statistics: wastes

17. Twinnings projects
Israel (DK): Improving the quality and international comparability of Israel official statistics in key domains (launched on 1stMay, 2013)
Jordan (DK): Strengthening the Capabilities of the Department of Statistics in Jordan (Nov '13 – Apr '15)
Morocco (F): Support in the area of the preparation of the foreign trade statistics (results will be presented in May, 2014)
Ukraine (DK): Developing Ukraine’s national system of official statistics in order to apply European standards and the Acquis in the area of statistics (Nov '13 – Nov '15)
In the pipeline: Armenia + Azerbaijan

18. Thank you for your attention