WRITTEN QUESTION P-0644/01 by Elisa Damião (PSE) to the Commission. Structural indicators ‐ report for the Stockholm Council.
Date: 2001-02-23
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: Eurostat, economic indicator, national statistics, statistical method, statistics

C 235 E/232

Official Journal of the European Communities

EN

21.8.2001

(2001/C 235 E/273)

WRITTEN QUESTION P-0644/01

by Elisa Damiªo (PSE) to the Commission

(23 February 2001)

Subject: Structural indicators (cid:129) report for the Stockholm Council

In view of the diverse nature of the sources used by Eurostat for the purpose of devising the indicators
which are intended as a means of implementing the Lisbon strategy and which have now been published
in the report for the Stockholm Council, would the Commission say whether or not the national and
regional public bodies which are accredited by the Member States for the purpose of supplying statistical
data were consulted by the Commission and, in particular, by Eurostat? Does the Commission accept
responsibility for the reliability and comparability of the indicators and would it indicate in greater detail
both its primary sources and its methods?

Answer given by Mr Solbes Mira on behalf of the Commission

(17 April 2001)

In order to be able to publish the Synthesis Report in mid-February, the Commission (Eurostat) had to
compile in a short time period all the data and indicators needed. Eurostat used, to the maximum extent
possible, the official harmonised European Statistical System (ESS) data already provided by the National
Statistical Institutes (NSI) of the Member States.

All the figures were to be delivered by 19 January 2001. Under this tight time schedule, Eurostat also
supplied the national data to those National Statistical Institutes that requested them and set a new
deadline that would permit it to take into account as much as possible their remarks. Regional bodies were
not contacted in this context as hardly any data is compiled at a regional level.

A final transmission of the data and indicators took place on 26 January 2001. The data was then used in
the Synthesis Report, which was presented by the President of the Commission, on 7 February 2001.

The Commission (Eurostat) in co-operation with its network of National Statistical Institutes accepts the
responsibility for the structural indicators and its quality. It has however to be noted that in the first
exercise of compiling structural indicators, in some cases deficiencies in some quality aspects were noted
(e.g. freshness, comparability, completeness).

Therefore Eurostat will establish a business plan to tackle these quality issues in the short and medium
term. A structure is being put in place that enables the participation of NSIs at the different levels, both in
the establishment of indicators and in the process of improving the quality of the data concerned.

An updated overview document of the methodology of structural indicators is already available on the
Eurostat website (1) under structural indicators site. Eurostat however intends to extend this methodology
to a greater level of detail within the work described above.

(1) http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/eurostat.

(2001/C 235 E/274)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0647/01

by Carlos Carnero GonzÆlez (PSE) to the Commission

Subject: Employment situation of workers at the Sintel company

(6 March 2001)

For a number of weeks over a thousand Sintel workers have been encamped on Madrid(cid:146)s Paseo de la
Castellana, opposite the headquarters of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Ministry of Science and
Technology. They are calling on the Spanish Government to take appropriate action in order to safeguard
jobs within their company and ensure that it remains viable in the future, since it directly and indirectly
employs thousands of people in all parts of Spain.