1. Eurostat Management Plan for Regional and Urban statistics
G. Schäfer
Working Group Meeting 17/18 October 2016

2. What are we working for? 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.

3. Major publications of Eurostat

4. Cooperation with REGIO on policy oriented publication

5. Current situation of regional statistics
Rather smooth operational situation in terms of:
Information and dissemination actions by REGIO and Eurostat
Functional cooperation on all levels (Member States, Commission Services and within Eurostat)
Important related developments
New datasets by TERCET typologies
Population projections
GDP timeliness: T+12 months, ESA 2010
Business demography
Improved coverage at NUTS level 2 for SILC

6. Current situation (cont)
TERCET Regulation
Consulting of DIMESA in May 2016
Inter-service consultations
Concrete regulatory text in ESSC in November
Afterwards European Council and Parliament
NUTS 2013 and 2016
NUTS 2013 Implementation is advancing well
NUTS 2016 in regulatory process
Functional geographies
On-going grants on Labour Market areas
New call for proposals launched by DG REGIO on cross border regions

7. Eurostat Annual Work Programme
Subjects
Europe 2020
Economic governance
Economic globalisation
Economic and social performance
Environmental sustainability
Business
People's Europe
Geospatial, environmental, agricultural and other sectoral statistics
Performance related
ESS quality management
Priority-setting and simplification
Multipurpose statistics and efficiency gains in production
Dissemination and communication
Training, innovation and research
Partnership with the ESS

8. Regional/urban statistics in AWP
ESP detailed objective 8.1: Support evidence-based policy-making by a more flexible and increased use of spatial information combined with social, economic and environmental statistical information for regions, regional typologies, cities and the degree of urbanisation.
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 urban areas and metropolitan regions. The Regulation on the territorial typologies currently in the regulatory process will be applied in the operational work on regional and urban statistics.

9. DIMESA
For Regional as well as GISCO progress reports were supplied on which the DIMESA took note. The key elements are the UN-GGIM initiative in which an improved cooperation between Statistical Offices and National Mapping Agencies is essential as well as the so-called TERCET Regulation which after years of preparation has now reached the necessary degree of maturity to advance to its last stage in the regulatory process within the European Council and the European Parliament.

10. Thank you
for your attention!