Intra and extra-Community trading of goods: trans-European network for the collection of statistics, Edicom II

The Commission submits a final report of activities financed under the EDICOM II programme, so as to enable an assessment of the results achieved results. This evaluation is focused on the EDICOM work programmes for the years 2001 to 2005. All the actions carried out within these work programmes were completed by the end of 2007.

The main findings are that the EDICOM II programme should be retained as the programme that contributed most to the enhancement and development of the trans-European network for the collection, production and dissemination of statistics on the trading of goods. The overall objectives of the programme were clearly defined and the design of the annual work programmes 2001-2005 made it possible to achieve concrete results in all relevant fields. The implementation of the work programme has been particularly efficient, thanks to the efforts of Member States and Eurostat and to the assistance of specific Working Groups. Progress has been achieved across a wide range of fields, from data collection to data validation and dissemination.

The majority of the projects managed to achieve significant results and many applications have been developed and implemented. In a few cases specific pilot studies did not produce better solutions compared to those already in place.

Difficulties have been encountered in establishing a common harmonised EU platform for the production of external trade statistics due to significant differences in the technological and administrative environments in Member States. However Eurostat has developed, via the XT-NET project, an open and modular system, composed of a set of interoperable tools that might be used as a common platform for the European network of external trade statistics.