EN    EN  
 EUROPEAN COMMISSION 
Brussels, 21.12.2011 
SEC(2011) 1623 final 
  
COMMISSION STAFF WORKING PAPER 
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF THE IMPACT ASSESSMENT 
Accompanying the document 
Proposal for a  
REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL 
on the European statis tical programme 2013-2017 
{COM(2011) 928 final} 
{SEC(2011) 1625 final}  
EN 2   EN INTRODUCTION   
The economic and social policy debate in the European Uni on over recent years is being 
driven by the multifaceted policy response to  the financial and economic crisis, the 
confidence crisis that emerged after Greece's misreporting of EDP-related budgetary figures 
in fall 2009, and the very intense debate how  to enhance economic governance of the Union 
building upon Commission's proposals adopted in September 2010. One core trait of the latter 
proposals is to introduce wider and more intense us e of European statisti cs and indicators as 
one key and reliable underpinning for monito ring, decision-making and policy evaluation of 
economic and social policies and reforms at national and EU levels.  
At the same time, fast-evolving and pressing needs for reliable and sufficient European 
statistics have to be confronted with the real ity that producing high-quality European statistics 
up to the expectations is  not straightforward business. Indeed  the European Statistical System 
(ESS) is composed by 27+1 partners, 300 pro cesses and 50 000 statisticians in total. 
Numerous actors strive to m eet numerous competing priori ties and policy demands for 
official and reliable information and hard-data, to adapt to tight requirements in terms of respecting the principles of subsidiarity and cost-effectiveness while being confronted with 
severe strains on the ground in terms of human and financial resources.  
The debate on economic governance and the progressive build-up of new Community 
policies - such as home and just ice affairs, climate change, research and innovation - and the 
policy initiatives and reforms that follow suit, al l speak clearly of the strategic importance for 
the Commission to steer the European Statistica l System into a joint commitment to develop, 
produce and preserve the highest quality  standards for European statistics. 
The present proposal for the European Stat istical Programme (ESP) 2013-2017 signals one 
powerful step towards the materi alisation of far-reaching, all- encompassing policy initiatives 
such as the GDP & beyond Initiative
1, the revision of the European System of National 
Accounts (ESA2010) or the follow-up to the S tiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Co mmission report on the 
measurement of economic perf ormance and social progress2. It also aims at bringing to reality 
the statistical priori ties and initiatives as decided by the Commission since late 2009.  
The ESP 2013-2017 covers all Eurostat's opera tional activities and budget (with year 2013 
being the only exception as this is the last year of the ongoing Mode rnisation of European 
Enterprise and Trade Statistics Programme, MEETS ). In order to make it possible that the 
programme adapts as much as possibly to the continuously evolving re quirements as regards 
European statistics, detailed information on the set of specific objectives, targets and indicators will be provided for in the form of  annual statistical work programmes and annual 
management plans. 
                                                
 
1 COM(2009) 433 final 
2 Report on the Measurement of Economic Performa nce and Social Progress, J.E. Stiglitz, A.Sen, 
J. -P. Fitoussi, 2009  (hereinafter referred to as Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Report ) 
EN 3   EN 1. PROBLEM  DEFINITION 
1.1. Problem description 
The European Statistical System is current ly faced with a number of challenges.  
(1) Firstly, the need for European statistics ha s been constantly incr easing during the last 
years and it is unlikely that this te ndency will change in the future.  
(2) Secondly, the nature of  statistics is changing – there is a growing need for complex 
multi-dimensional statistics, of even higher quality and with shorter time delays than 
before.  
(3) Thirdly, due to the appearance of new actor s on the information market providing 
new types of statistics, including those providi ng information in nearly real time, the 
priority for the ESS in the future is the fres hness of data, in particular when it refers 
to the short-term economic information.  
(4) Fourthly, budget constraints both at national and European level, which have become 
more pertinent with the econom ic crisis, as well as the need to further reduce the 
burden on enterprises and citizens make th e situation even more challenging.  
All these challenges are addressed in the Communication on the production method of EU 
statistics as well as the joint European Sta tistical System strategy on its implementation, 
aiming at reengineering the ways of working in the ESS in order to make the ESS more 
efficient and flexible. Aiming at increasing efficiency of the production method of EU 
statistics, the new production method will, when im plemented, result in major efficiency gains 
and will increase the ESS's capaci ty to satisfy new needs for st atistical information, but the 
need to reduce response burden in a more  short-term compared to the long-term 
implementation of the vision, emphasises the necessity of improved priority-setting and 
reduction of burden more than ever. 
1.2. Justification for EU action: Subsidiarit y and added value of EU involvement 
Union statistics and the right fo r the Commission to propose actions  have their basis in Article 
338 of the Treaty on the Functioni ng of the European Union. Th e shared competence between 
Union and national levels is justified by the transnational character of many aspects of 
statistics in general and of European statistics  in particular. While Member States will ensure 
the actual collection of the statistical information at national level, only a coordinated approach to the development, production and di ssemination of European statistics as a whole 
will guarantee the required coherence and compar ability of the statistics relevant for the 
activities of the Union. Furthermore, it is in th e interest of policy makers at both national and 
EU levels that statistical activities are effectivel y and efficiently planned in advance, inter alia 
by way of a multiannual programme as foreseen in Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics. The scale of the acti ons included in the programme justifies EU 
involvement since the objective of the propos ed action, namely, the development, production 
and dissemination of European statistics  under the ESP 2013-2017, cannot be sufficiently 
achieved by the Member States and is therefor e better achieved at EU level on the basis of a 
European Union legal act Only the Commissi on can coordinate the necessary harmonisation 
of statistical information at the European level in all statistical domains covered by this act, while, as mentioned above, the data collection its elf can be carried out by the Member States. 
EN 4   EN Consequently, the European Union may adopt m easures in accordance with the principle of 
subsidiarity as set out in Article 5 of  the Treaty on European Union (TEU). 
The added value of EU action is that it allows to concentrate the statistical activities on EU 
policies and issues of relevance for the European Statistical System as a whole. In addition it 
contributes to an effective use of resources and to helping national authorities to do what they 
need to do but do not always have  the capacity to do, fo r instance in terms of priority-setting, 
harmonisation and methodological development. Fu rthermore, a specific added value of the 
proposed action would be to make essential contri butions to some priority  Union activities, in 
particular the Europe 2020 strategy and the enhanced economic governance. 
2. OBJECTIVES 
As far as the objectives of a multi-annual programme are concerned, there obviously is a great 
variety of possibilities to choos e from. However, after having conducted extremely extensive 
consultations with all stakehol ders of the European Statisti cal System, the following set of 
general, specific and operational objectives appear s to offer a satisfactory reply to the highest 
number of stakeholder needs identified while  taking into account th e all the respective 
provisions of the legislation on Eu ropean statistics in force. 
The general objectives  of the multiannual statistical programme are the following: 
(1) provide quality statistical information to  support the development, monitoring and 
evaluation of the policies of the Europ ean Union properly re flecting priorities; 
(2) implement new methods of production of Eur opean statistics aiming at efficiency 
gains and quality improvements; 
(3) strengthen the partnership w ithin the ESS and beyond in or der to further enhance its 
productivity and its leading role in  official statistics worldwide. 
The specific objectives  complementing the above genera l objectives cover the following 
areas: 
(1) Europe 2020 policy for smart, su stainable, inclusive growth 
(2) Integrated Economic governance  and the surveillance cycl e integrating the Stability 
and Growth Pact and the economic policy. 
(3) Economic globalisation and global value chains. 
(4) Economic and social performance. 
(5) Environmental accounts and climat e change relate d statistics. 
(6) Business statistics, short te rm indicators, internationa l transactions, globalisation, 
single market monitoring, innovation, and tourism. 
(7) People's Europe (e.g. social cohesion, pove rty, demographic challenges, labour 
market, education and training, quality of lif e, safety, health and disability, free 
movement and single market, etc). 
EN 5   EN (8) Geospatial and environmental statistical information, pl us sectoral statistics 
(transport, agriculture, fisheries and forestry). 
The operational objectives  complementing the above general and specific objectives cover the 
following areas: 
(1) ESS quality management system. 
(2) Priority setting and simplification. 
(3) Multipurpose statistics and efficiency gains in production. 
(4) Dissemination and communication. 
(5) Training, innovation and research in the field of statistics. 
(6) Partnership within the ESS; co-operation w ith the European Syst em of Central Banks 
and international organisations  involved in the production of statistics; statistical 
advisory and assistance activitie s in countries outside the EU. 
3. POLICY  OPTIONS 
The Objectives summarized above could be achieved to different degrees in numerous 
different ways that can be summarized  and grouped in three main options: 
3.1. Option 1: "zero option" with no European Statistical Programme 
Without a legal framework of the European Stat istical Programme, European Statistics will be 
collected and/or produced by different Commission services in an independent way, with their 
own resources, with the help of the ESS ins titutional providers and/or private providers.  
3.2. Option 2: ESP 2013-17 will be a repetition of the CSP 2008-1012 
This option means no change in terms of st atistics covered in the current Community 
Statistical Programme. This could be considered  as the baseline scenario against which the 
other options can be compared. 
3.3. Option 3: a new five-year European St atistical Programme is established 
A new European Statistical Programme would be  proposed for adoption c overing a period of 
five years, i.e. lasting from 2013 to 2017 , whic h will cover the objectives listed in Chapter 2. 
3.4. Other options or sub-options 
A multitude of intermediate options could be identified between Option 1 and 3 (and/or as 
sub-options under Option 3) by defining differe nt combinations of subsets of European 
Statistics that would be included in the mu lti-annual programme. These multitude sub-options 
have not been included in this document for the following reasons: 
• An extensive consultation as regards which statistical domains should be included or 
not included in the ESP has already been  c a r r i e d  o u t  i n  a  with all the main 
stakeholders (see § 1.5). 
EN 6   EN • One of the main shortcomings of the current multi-annual programme is that it 
attempted to define with too main detail s the actions to the undertaken. The goal of 
Option3 is to define a multi-annual program me which is sufficiently flexible for 
allowing for a quick response to changing policy needs. In f act, the ESP is a 
framework  programme that will be implem ented through annual work programmes 
which are prepared according to a proce dure that involves di alogues with producers 
and users of statistics, plus policy makers, in  order to define each  year the priority 
areas. 
4. ANALYSIS  OF IMPACTS 
The ESP 2013-2017 is not among th e Commission initiatives whic h have been identified as 
having far reaching economic, so cial and environmental impacts and it is therefore not 
included in the Commission Work Programme. 
The decisions to produce European statistics are driven by policy-making. The objective is to 
support policy-making by providing European Institutions and the governments of Member States with relevant st atistical information needed to  design, implement, monitor and 
evaluate EU policies.  
The "impact of statistics" is linked to the fact  that it is an infrastructure serving many 
purposes in modern information societies. Th e social, economic and environmental impact of 
statistics or a statistical legi slative proposal is not measurable  since the role of European 
statistics is a basic precondition for eviden ce based decision-making. How important high 
quality statistical figures are, has become mo re than evident throug hout the last years, 
whenever a lack of solidity has led to costly  wrong decisions, to misallocations of money or 
even to major disruptions of the political sy stem. The Greek crisis is an example of the 
potential impact of bad statistics. The desi gn and the evaluation of European policies are 
significantly depending on good stat istics. Statistical informa tion help political decision-
makers assess (ex-ante) the expected impact of and measure (ex-post) the actual impact of EU 
policies. Statistics are needed to help driv e the outcomes that policies are aiming at and 
measure progress towards these outcomes. Statis tics must continue to be fit for purpose in 
under-pinning decision-making for t hose critical policies which are most relevant to European 
citizens and where wrong deci sions would have a very high cost for Europe.  
For most statistical legislative proposals, the formal requirements for Impact Assessments as 
concerns analysis of impact are not applicable as the impact of statistical programming is on 
Commission policies. However, th e production of European statis tics has an impact in terms 
of administrative burden on national instituti ons and response burden of enterprises and 
citizens.  
In the current approach, the reduction of bur den on businesses followed the organisation of 
the data collection system meani ng that the reduction measures were introduced separately for 
a number of European legal acts which curre ntly govern the collect ion of statistical 
information on Member States' economic activity  of the business sect or. Considering the 
efforts made so far, this stovepipe approa ch has a limited potential for costs and burden 
reduction in the future. Further reduction of th e burden on businesses, mainly SMEs, can only 
be achieved in the future through a new, integrated approach stemming from the 
implementation of Communication 404. This a pproach is only possible by implementing 
Option 3. 
EN 7   EN Numerous initiatives included in the programme  can foster the reduction of administrative 
costs and burdens for the public authorities and businesses. This objective can best be 
achieved through long term proj ects, deriving mostly from the implementation of the 
Communication on the production met hod of EU statistics. Aiming at  increasing efficiency of 
the production method of EU statistics, when im plemented, the Communicat ion will result in 
efficiency savings and will lighten the process of satisfying the new needs for statistical information. Further projects, which now fall in to the scope of the MEETS programme, will 
be integrated into the European  Statistical Programme after 2013." 
In order to ensure that tangible results as re gards the reduction of burden are achieved also in 
the short term and to help free up the neces sary resources for new and strategic needs, 
Eurostat has put in place a stra tegy-driven priority-setting mechanism. It is composed of two 
elements: review of priorities  and the introduction of sunset clauses in new legal acts. The 
review of priorities involves an annual review on existing statistical requirements. Every year, 
when preparing the Annual Statistical Work Pr ogramme of the following year, Eurostat will 
screen existing requirements for statistics, exam ine the possibility of stopping data collection 
in certain areas with higher im pact in terms of cost and bu rden reduction and make initial 
proposals for repealing an existi ng legal act requiring statistical  data collections; stopping a 
voluntary statistical da ta collection based on gentlemen's agreement; and areas under review 
for simplification. These proposals will be t horoughly discussed with the producers and users 
of statistics in order to come up with a list agreed by all stak eholders which is subsequently 
incorporated in the Annual Work Programme  of Eurostat which is adopted by the 
Commission. The second element of priority-s etting mechanism is the introduction of the 
concept of "sunset clauses" in new legal acts. This measure implies that expiration/validations dates for carrying out data collections will be in cluded in new legal acts to be prepared in the 
future. This means that once the expiration date  is approaching, a thorough discussion will be 
initiated in order to understand the need to contin ue the data collection and that data collection 
is not going to be carri ed out without a clear and justified need.  
5. COMPARING
 THE  OPTIONS 
5.1. Option 1: "zero option" with no European Statistical Programme 
Having no five-year statistical programme at European level would implicate the lack of 
long-term planning which is an inherent prer equisite of the development, production and 
dissemination of statistical information. 
This option would not ensure at all the achievement of the Object ives defined in Section 3. No 
legal framework for the production of European statistics would then exist and no operational 
budget would be provided. The users of statis tics (Commission Directorates-General, the 
ECB, etc.) would have to produc e or look for statistics themse lves, in an uncoordinated and 
inefficient way and there would not be a commonly agreed assura nce of quality of European 
statistics. The uncoordinated demand of statistic s by the different users would also contribute 
to an increase in the res ponse burden of individuals, ho useholds, enterprises and ESS 
institutional providers of statistics. 
5.2. Option 2: ESP 2013-17 will be a repetition of the CSP 2008-1012 
This option would not ensure the achievement of  the objectives defined in Section 3 only to a 
limited extent and would corres pond to partially outdated polic y priorities. The statistics 
EN 8   EN provided would correspond to policy needs of the period 2008-2012 and would not take into 
account new developments and needs for priority policies of the European Union such as the Europe 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth  and other policies addressed 
in the Commission's strategic priorities fo r 2010-2014. The costs of inadequate statistics 
would be considerable. In addi tion, these statistics would be produced according to the 
stovepipe model
3, i.e. without taking advantage of new method of production of European 
statistics aiming at efficiency gains and quality improvements. 
5.3. Option 3: a new five-year European St atistical Programme is established 
With this option European statistics will bette r correspond to users' needs. There will be an 
agreed assurance of quality and the production of  statistics will be mo re cost-effective as a 
result of the new method of production.  
The objectives defined for the ESP 2013-2017 will be  in line with the Commission's strategic 
priorities and will address the challenges that the European System are faced with in the coming years. 
All comments received from stakeholders on th e draft ESP have been carefully analysed by 
Eurostat and taken into account when prepar ing a revised version of the ESP 2013-2017 for 
the Inter-Service Consultation. 
The ESP reflects the commitment to the strategy -driven priority-setting approach established 
by Eurostat and presented to the ESSC in 2010. Following this approach, the exercise on 
negative priorities is an integrated part of the preparation of the a nnual statistical work 
programmes and will therefore be carried out for th e period of the ESP. In order to serve as a 
general and flexible planning instrument allo wing for new developments  to be taken into 
account, the ESP provides the general framework for the development, production and 
dissemination of European statistics by fixing the main fields and objectives of actions 
envisaged for the next five years. These objectives are subject to more detailed definition and planning in the annual statistical  work programmes. In this wa y, a clear link is established 
between the ESP and the annual statistical work programmes. 
5.4. The preferred option 
Option 3 of a new five-year ESP 2013-2017 seems to  be the best option given the fact that 
this is the only option that would ensure the ach ievement of all the objec tives defined, i.e. (i) 
providing quality statistics that  correspond to users' needs in term of coverage, timeliness, 
comparability and reliability; (ii) producing statis tical information in a cost-effective way; and 
(iii) reduction of the response and administrativ e burden of respondents. Consequently, this is 
the only out of the 3 options that is able to o ffer a satisfactory response to all four challenges 
identified under Section 2.1. 
                                                
 
3 In the stovepipe model statistics are traditionally produced in numerous parallel processes, country by 
country (in some cases even region by region) and domain per domain. In such a model every single 
product stovepipe corresponds to a specific domai n of statistics together with the corresponding 
production system. For each  domain, the whole pro duction process from survey design over data 
collection and processing to di ssemination takes place independently  of other domains, and each 
domain has its own data suppliers and user groups. The stovepipe model is also reflected in the way 
statistical domains are regula ted at the European level. 
EN 9   EN Key: ++ = very positive impact; + = positive impact; 0 = no or neutral impact; - = negative 
impact; -- = very negative impact 
 
6. MONITORING  AND  EVALUATION 
The ESP 2013-2017 is a framework programme th at will be implemented through Annual 
Statistical Work Programmes a nd Management Plans. Monitoring the progress will be done as 
part of the annual SPP cycle and two reports wi ll be produced every year on the progress of 
achievement of the objectives in the annual and multi-annual programme. 
More specifically, (1) the number of values added in to the Eu rostat dissemination databases 
(by statistical domain), (2) the proportion of users rating th e overall quality of European 
statistics as "very good" or "good" and (3) the number of downloads of different publications 
from Eurostat's website will be monitored and reported on throughout the implementation period of the programme. 
The implementation of Communi cation on the new production met hod will also be subject to 
specific monitoring. A first report on progress made in the prepar atory phase was presented to 
the ESSC in May 2011 and will be submitted to the ECOFIN Counc il in November 2011. 
As far as the budgetary and financial execu tion is concerned, the programme will be 
implemented in conformity with the Financia l Regulation. Eurostat has defined a control 
strategy 2013-2017 accompanying the implem entation of the programme. Reducing 
complexity (for example, grants awarded fo r the implementation of the objectives of the 
programme may take the form of lump sums) and cost-effective monitoring procedures, risk 
based reinforced ex-ante and ex-post controls will aim to reduce the likelihood/prevent fraud. 
It is foreseen that, in line with the Regula tion on European statistics, an interim progress 
report will be prepared and, after consulting th e ESS Committee, submitted to the European 
Parliament and the Council no later than June 2015. 
At the end of the period covered by the progr amme, the ESP will be subject to an ex-post 
evaluation. The ESS Committee will be consu lted on the evaluation report which will be 
completed by end of 2018 and subsequently submitted to the European Parliament and the Council.