Opinion of the Economic and Social Committee on the 'Proposal for a Council Decision on the Community Statistical Programme 1998-2002` (98/C 235/14)

On 31 March 1998 the Council decided to consult the Economic and Social Committee, in accordance with Article 198 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, on the above-mentioned proposal.

The Section for Economic, Financial and Monetary Questions, which was responsible for preparing the Committee's work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 12 May 1998. The rapporteur was Mr Vasco Cal.

At its 355th plenary session held on 27 and 28 May 1998 (meeting of 27 May), the Economic and Social Committee adopted the following opinion by 118 votes for, none against and with five abstentions.

1. Introduction

1.1. The Commission is presenting its fifth five-year programme prepared by Eurostat. The programme will be the subject of a Council Decision in accordance with Article 3(1) of Council Regulation (EC) No 322/97 on Community statistics. Regulation (EC) No 322/97 stipulates that the Community should have timely access to statistical information which is comparable between the Member States and is up-to-date, reliable, relevant and produced as efficiently as possible for the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of its policies.

1.2. Regulation (EC) No 322/97 also stipulates that the Community's statistical programme must define the 'approaches, the main fields and the objectives of the actions envisaged for a period not exceeding five years`. The Commission continues this policy in its present programme by setting itself the objective of 'providing the European Union with a high-quality statistical information service`, and rising to three challenges, viz.: meeting the needs of Community policies, improving cooperation between Eurostat and national statistical services (which together form the Community Statistical Service (CSS), and fixing priorities.

1.3. The Commission identifies four categories of priorities:

- policy priorities of the Community;

- major statistical or infrastructure projects;

- evolutionary maintenance of systems supporting existing policy needs;

- other statistical indicators required.

1.4. The programme will cost between EURO 83 and 95 million per year.

1.5. The programme spells out proposed action in the following key areas:

- Free movement of goods;

- Agriculture;

- Free movement of persons, services and capital;

- Transport;

- Common rules on competition, taxation and approximation of laws;

- Economic and monetary policy;

- Common commercial policy;

- Social policy, education, vocational training and youth;

- Culture;

- Public health;

- Consumer protection;

- Trans-European networks;

- Industry;

- Economic and social cohesion;

- Research and technological development;

- Environment;

- Development cooperation;

- Statistical work not covered by Treaty titles.

1.6. This list follows the order of the titles in the EC Treaty and does not therefore indicate priorities. The Commission does however give clear priority to:

- Economic and Monetary Union,

- Competitiveness, Growth and Employment,

- EU enlargement.

1.7. Last but not least, the Commission indicates not only priorities in each statistical area, but also those actions where Eurostat is experiencing delays or postponements due to financial constraints.

2. Earlier work

2.1. In April 1994 () the Committee delivered an opinion on the Commission proposal which culminated in the Council Regulation of 17 February 1997 () on Community statistics In other words the Council needed almost three years before being able to take a final decision on this important matter. The Committee itself had not expressed any reservations in principle on the Commission proposal.

2.2. In November 1992 the Committee delivered an Opinion on, inter alia, a Proposal for a Council Decision on the framework programme for priority actions in the field of statistical information 1993-1997 (). This opinion concluded that there was a certain imbalance between political and methodological priorities and argued in favour of 'an alignment of the capacities of national statistical systems on the highest possible level.` The opinion also cast doubts on the chances of being able to fully implement the 'ambitious` programme of the Commission.

3. General comments

3.1. The Economic and Social Committee welcomes the opportunity to express its views on the Community's fifth statistical programme. The Committee realizes in its daily work how useful it is to have effective and comprehensive statistical services at Community and national levels. The Committee does not intend to discuss the basic characteristics of such services in this present opinion since the matter has already been exhaustively dealt with in Regulation (EC) No 322/97 and in the Committee opinion on the Commission's draft regulation. The Committee would nevertheless emphasize that the European Union needs a statistical system which meets criteria of independence and is adequately funded.

3.2. The Committee considers that the Commission makes a sufficiently clear distinction in the proposal under discussion between methodology and the action to be taken in support of Community policies. The Committee does not however believe that the European Union has hitherto made sufficient progress in harmonizing national statistical systems. In general the harmonization of Community statistics comes after the formulation and implementation of the respective Community policies.

3.3. The Committee regrets in particular that national services continue to divulge statistics which are in no way comparable, even though efforts have been made to give Eurostat the information necessary for comparability. An area where this is particularly evident concerns statistics on employment and unemployment. Far too often the collection of national statistics is based on different interpretations of the harmonized rules on statistics agreed at Community level. This can result in Community policies being applied in a discriminatory fashion.

3.4. The Committee approves the Commission's priorities given the inadequate financial resources allocated to Eurostat. It would nevertheless urge that economic and social cohesion be added to the three priorities listed in Article 2 of the proposal for a decision. The existence of reliable and rapidly available regional statistics () is indeed absolutely essential for effecting transfers between countries and regions without which there can be no economic and social cohesion - still one of the priority objectives of the European Union.

3.5. The Committee regrets the delay or postponement of action in certain statistical areas resulting from the lack of human and financial resources. An example of such a delay is in the statistics on investment. This is unfortunate in that the interpretation of investment statistics is essential to macro-economic policy and hence to the success of the (economic) growth and (monetary) stability policies pursued on the basis of EC Treaty Article 103. It is also likely to have serious consequences when fines are imposed on certain countries under the Stability and Growth Pact.

3.6. The Economic and Social Committee approves the proposal for a Council Decision, taking into account the general and specific comments which precede or follow this point.

4. Specific comments

4.1. The Committee considers that in Title VI (economic and monetary policy) the Commission should make out a clearer case for the development of a common methodology on the collection of statistics on consumer price trends and purchasing power parities. Purchasing power parities at regional level, together with references to urban centres, merit particular attention. Such statistics are necessary not only to monitor the convergence of Member State policies (Article 103 of the EC Treaty) but also for the needs of Title XIV (economic and social cohesion).

4.2. The Committee wonders whether the Commission could not give a clearer indication of statistical needs in the interests of the adoption of a definitive VAT regime in the Community.

4.2.1. The choice of a definitive VAT regime, involving taxation in the country of origin and not in the country of consumption, will oblige the Member States to agree on a compensation scheme to avoid losses of revenue. This change will require a more complete harmonization of the macroeconomic aggregates used in national accounts to offset the loss of such information as that provided by the present VAT regime.

4.3. The Committee realizes that the requirement to provide statistics can place a heavy burden on enterprises, particularly SMEs. The cost borne by enterprises could however be substantially reduced:

- by consolidating the statistics required by different administrations,

- by using new information technologies (Internet, etc.) whilst bearing in mind the need to protect confidential information.

4.4. In most cases, however, there are also corresponding benefits since enterprises can make use of the statistics to which they have contributed in defining their marketing strategies, etc. Information campaigns launched in seminars and via the Internet might also bring business leaders to a better understanding of the usefulness of statistics and above all encourage them to make more effective use of statistics themselves. Member States could help trade associations develop software, thereby turning statistics into management tools for the entrepreneur.

4.5. The Committee finds that comparable Community statistics on unemployment and employment are totally inadequate. Not only do methods of collecting statistics vary greatly from one Member State to another, but there is a lack of accurate data on various part-time working schemes, fixed-term contracts and the individual preferences of workers on working hours and the duration of work contracts. Such statistics are vital for the Union's employment policy and for the employment programmes which Member States are required to draw up in this context.

4.6. The Committee agrees that the 'quality of Community statistics is conditioned by the quality of the data provided to Eurostat` and that 'the ultimate goal of the CSS is to meet all needs for statistics in the EU in an integrated and harmonized manner` (see point 2.2 of the Commission document). The Committee therefore feels that it is very important to improve and develop the CSS, including national statistical institutes, and work out new working methods so as to make available at the right time the statistics necessary for the major policy decisions of the EU.

Brussels, 27 May 1998.

The President

of the Economic and Social Committee

Tom JENKINS

() OJ C 195, 18.7.1994.

() OJ L 52, 22.2.1997.

() OJ C 19, 25.1.1993.

() Including urban areas, bearing in mind the new proposals for amending the regulations on the Structural Funds.