European statistical programme 2013-2017

PURPOSE: to establish a European statistical programme 2013-2017.

PROPOSED ACT: Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council.  

BACKGROUND: the current Community Statistical Programme, adopted by a European Parliament and Council Decision No 1578/2007/EC and covering the period from 2008 to 2012, is the seventh of its kind. In recent years the European Statistical System has been faced with a number of challenges.

(1) the need for European statistics has been constantly increasing, and this trend is unlikely to change in future.

(2) the nature of statistics has changed — evidence-based decision making requires statistics that meet high quality criteria linked to the specific purposes they are serving, and there is an increasing need for complex multidimensional statistics supporting composite policy areas.

(3) due to the appearance of new actors on the information market, including those providing information in nearly real time, the priority for the ESS in future is high quality and, in the case of short-term statistics, timeliness in particular.

(4) budget constraints at both national and European level as well as the need to further reduce the burden on enterprises and citizens make the situation even more challenging.

The Commission Communication on the production method of EU statistics: a vision for the next decade and the ESS strategy for its implementation15 address all these challenges by aiming to reengineer

the ways of working in the ESS in order to make it more efficient and flexible. The implementation of this Communication constitutes the core of the proposed European statistical programme.

IMPACT ASSESSMENT: prior to the preparation of this proposal, the users of European statistics, i.e. the Directorates-General of the Commission, the European Central Bank and the European Statistical Advisory Committee, were consulted. In the framework of the impact assessment, after thorough consideration and analysis of the different scenarios, the number of options has been reduced to three:

• Option 1: "zero option" with no European Statistical Programme: the risks related to this option are high because in this case no legal framework for the production of European statistics would exist, so that their quality and the efficiency of statistical production would not be ensured. In these cases statistics would be produced in an uncoordinated way by different producers.
• Option 2: ESP 2013-17 will be a repetition of the CSP 2008-2012: the risks involved in this option are linked to the fact that statistics provided would correspond to partially outdated policy priorities which are produced according to the traditional method, i.e. without taking advantage of the new method of production of European statistics aiming at efficiency gains and quality improvements. The costs of inadequate statistics would be considerable.
• Option 3: a new five-year European Statistical Programme is established: the risks linked to this option are considered to be relatively low as in this case European statistics would be produced under the established legal framework, i.e. the quality of statistics and the efficiency of the production method would be ensured as European statistics would be developed, collected and disseminated in a coordinated way.

LEGAL BASIS: Article 338(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU).

CONTENT: the proposal establishes the European statistical programme for the period from 2013 to 2017. The programme provides the framework for the development, production and dissemination of European statistics, the main fields and the objectives of the actions envisaged for the programming period.

The main purpose of European statistics is to underpin the development, monitoring and evaluation of European policies with reliable, objective, comparable and coherent factual information.

The current proposal is consistent with the Union’s priorities as statistics developed, produced and disseminated under this programme will contribute to the implementation of the EU’s priority policies, such as the Europe 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth and other policies addressed in the Commission’s strategic priorities for 2010-2014 (i.e. strengthened and integrated economic governance, climate change, growth and social cohesion, people’s Europe and globalisation).

BUDGETARY IMPLICATION: total amount to be borne by the budget of the EU is €299.4 million (current prices) for the duration of the programme from 2013 to 2017, of which €57.3 million is covered by the programming period 2007 to 2013 and €242.1 million by the programming period 2014 to 2017.