# Eurostat

Eurostat ("European Statistical Office"; also DG ESTAT) is a Directorate-General of the European Commission located in the Kirchberg quarter of Luxembourg City, Luxembourg. Eurostat's main responsibilities are to provide statistical information to the institutions of the European Union (EU) and to promote the harmonisation of statistical methods across its member states and candidates for accession as well as EFTA countries. The organisations in the different countries that cooperate with Eurostat are summarised under the concept of the European Statistical System.

## Organisation

Eurostat operates pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 223/2009. Since the swearing in of the von der Leyen Commission in December 2019, Eurostat is allocated to the portfolio of the European Commissioner for the Economy, Paolo Gentiloni.
The Director-General of Eurostat is Mariana Kotzeva, former Deputy Director-General of Eurostat and President of the National Statistical Institute of Bulgaria.

## History

* 1953 The Statistics Division for the European Coal and Steel Community established.
* 1958 The European Community founded and the forerunner of Eurostat established.
* 1959 The present name of Eurostat as the Statistical Office of the European Communities adopted. First publication issued - on agricultural statistics.
* 1960 First Community Labour Force Survey.
* 1970 The European System of Integrated Economic Accounts (European System of Accounts, ESA) published and the general Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community (NACE) established.
* 1974 First domain in the statistical database Cronos databank installed.
* 1988 European Commission adopts a document defining the first policy for statistical information.
* 1989 The Statistical Programme Committee established and the first programme (1989–1992) adopted by the council as an instrument for implementing statistical information policy.
* 1990 The Council adopts a directive on transmission of confidential data to Eurostat, previously an obstacle to Community statistical work.
* 1991 Eurostat's role extended as a result of the agreement on establishment of the European Economic Area and adoption of the Maastricht Treaty.
* 1993 The single market extends Eurostat's activities e.g. Intrastat established for statistics on intra-EU trade. Eurostat starts issuing regular news releases.
* 1994 First European household panel held, analysing income, employment, poverty, social exclusion, households, health, etc.
* 1997 Statistics added for the first time to the Treaty of Amsterdam and the Statistical Law approved by the council. Harmonised Indices of Consumer Prices HICP published for the first time - designed for Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union (EMU) convergence criteria.
* 1998 The eleven countries in at the start of EMU (EUR-11) announced, and Eurostat issues the first indicators specific to the EMU area.
* 1999 Start of EMU, 1 January 2001.
* 2001 In April, Eurostat, in collaboration with five other international organisations (APEC, IAE, OLADE, OPEC, UNSD) launched the Joint Oil Data Exercise, which in 2005 became the Joint Organisations Data Initiative (JODI).
* 2002 Start of the Euro on 1 January, Eurostat supplies key statistics for monetary policy.
* 2003 Irregularities were suspected in Eurostat, see Eurostat scandal.
* 2004 Start of free-of-charge dissemination of all statistical data except microdata for research purposes.
* 2005 Commission Recommendation on the independence, integrity and Accountability of the National and Community Statistical Authorities (European Statistics Code of Practice)
* 2005 Start of a three-year peer review exercise across the European Statistical System to monitor compliance with the Code of Practice.
* 2007 The currently valid five-year Statistical Programme 2008-2012 was adopted.
* 2009 New European Regulation governing statistical cooperation in the European Union was adopted.
* 2010 Following strong criticism, from within the EU and otherwise, of how it had handled inaccurate data regarding Greece, Eurostat published a report to try to rectify its procedures. The European Commission proposes powers for Eurostat to audit the books of national governments in response to the Greek government-debt crisis.
* 2011 Revision of European Statistics Code of Practice by the European Statistical System Committee.

## Directors General

| Name | Nationality | Term |
| Rolf Wagenführ | West Germany | 1952–1966 |
| Raymond Dumas | France | 1966–1973 |
| Jacques Mayer | France | 1973–1977 |
| Aage Dornonville de la Cour | Denmark | 1977–1982 |
| Pieter de Geus | Netherlands | 1982–1984 |
| Silvio Ronchetti | Italy | 1984–1987 |
| Yves Franchet | France | 1987–2003 |
| Michel Vanden Abeele | Belgium | 2003–2004 |
| Günther Hanreich | Austria | 2004–2006 |
| Hervé Carré | France | 2006–2008 |
| Walter Radermacher | Germany | 2008–2016 |
| Mariana Kotzeva (acting 2017–2018) | Bulgaria | 2017–current |

## Regulations

The Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of 11 March 2009 on European statistics establishes the legal framework for the European statistics.
The amending Regulation (EU) 2015/759 of 29 April 2015 clarifies that heads of NSIs coordinate national level activities for European statistics and decide on processes, methods, standards and procedures of their respective statistics.
Previous Eurostat regulations were a Decision on Eurostat (2012/504/EU), and the earlier Decision on Eurostat (97/281/EC).

## Main areas of statistical activities

European regions by GDP, expressed as a percentage of the EU average

### Statistical work

The Eurostat statistical work is structured into Themes and Sub-themes.

#### General and regional statistics

* Regions and cities
* Land cover/use statistics (LUCAS)
* International cooperation

#### Economy and finance

* National accounts (including GDP)
* ESA Input-Output tables
* European sector accounts
* Pensions in National Accounts
* Government finance and EDP
* Exchange and interest rates
* Harmonised Indices of Consumer Prices (HICP)
* Housing price statistics
* Purchasing Power Parities (PPPs)
* Balance of payments
* Economic globalisation

#### Population and social conditions

* Population: demography, population projections, census, asylum & migration
* Health
* Education and training
* Labour market (including Labour Force Survey (LFS))
* Income, social inclusion and living conditions
* Social protection
* Household Budget Surveys
* Youth
* Culture
* Sport
* Crime and criminal justice
* Quality of life indicators
* Equality (age, gender and disability)
* Skills related statistics

#### Industry, trade and services

* Structural business statistics
* Short-term business statistics
* Tourism
* Manufactured goods (Prodcom)

#### Agriculture and fisheries

* Agriculture
* Forestry
* Fisheries

#### International trade

* International trade in goods (Comext)
* International trade in services

#### Environment and energy

* Environment
* Energy
* Climate change

#### Science, technology, digital society

* Science, technology and innovation
* Digital economy and society

### General statistical activities

General statistical activities related to the European Statistical system are:
* Coordination and governance of the European Statistical System
* Statistical methodological coordination and research
* Statistical quality and reporting

### Geographical scope
#### EU data

Currently, and since Brexit on February the first 2020, Eurostat data are aggregated at the EU-27 level, known as EU-27. Before Brexit Eurostat data was aggregated at the EU-28 level, known as EU-28.
Since Brexit occurred on February the first 2020, data has to be computed for the EU-27 because by definition Brexit makes the UK a third country to the EU.
Nonetheless, to avoid confusion with the previous EU-27 group of 27 member states — which was used in the series of statistical data before the accession of member state number 28 — another name for the current EU 27 without the UK is defined as EU27_2019 in February 2019 and EU27_2020 since March 2020 according to Eurostat.
The name changed from EU27_2019 to EU27_2020 due to a British constitutional delay which resulted in Brexit being delivered in 2020 rather than the initially planned 2019.
The concept of the EU 28 has been used since 1 January 2014, also according to the Eurostat methodological manual on city statistics, 2017 edition.
Local data are also computed at the NUTS level.

#### Statistical cooperation in and around Europe

Eurostat is also engaged in cooperation with third countries through the European Statistical System, Enlargement Policy, and European Neighbourhood Policy.
In 2021, European Statistical System includes 4 EFTA countries, that is 3 EEA countries and Switzerland.
EU Enlargement Policy includes "candidate countries" in the process of joining the EU and other potential candidates.
In 2021, European Neighbourhood Policy covers 16 countries such as 6 ENP-East countries — Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine — and 10 ENP-South countries — Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria and Tunisia.
The trade and cooperation agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom — since 1 January 2021 — includes a provision on statistical cooperation that foresees the establishment of a specific future arrangement.

## Access to Eurostat statistics

The most important statistics are made available via press releases. They are placed on the Eurostat website at 11:00 in the morning. This is also the time that the press release content may be distributed to the public by press agencies.
Eurostat disseminates its statistics free of charge via its Internet and its statistical databases that are accessible via the Internet. The statistics are hierarchically ordered in a navigation tree. Tables are distinguished from multi-dimensional datasets from which the statistics are extracted via an interactive tool.
In addition various printed publications are available either in electronic form free on the internet or in printed form via the EU Bookshop. Only larger publications are charged for as printed copies.
Since September 2009 Eurostat has pioneered a fully electronical way of publishing, Statistics Explained, like Wikipedia based on Mediawiki open source software and with a largely similar structure and navigation. Statistics Explained is not only a dissemination format, however, but also a wiki working platform for producing flagship publications like the Eurostat Yearbook.

## Statistical data for research purposes

Microdata, which in principle allows the identification of the statistical unit (e.g., a person in the labour force survey or a company for innovation statistics), is treated as strictly confidential. Under tight security procedures various anonymised datasets are provided to research institutions for validated research projects.

## Location

Eurostat has been based in the Joseph Bech building, in the northeast of the Kirchberg quarter of Luxembourg City, since the building was opened in 1998. The Directorate-General will relocate to the Jean Monnet 2 building, in the Kirchberg's European district, following the completion of the first phase of the building, expected in February 2023.