COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT IMPACT ASSESSMENT Accompanying the document Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EU) No 99/2013 on the European statistical programme 2013-17, by extending it to 2018-20
Date: 2016-09-07
Institutions: European Commission, Eurostat
Subjects: EFTA countries, EU Member State, EU policy, EU programme, EU statistics, European Economic Area, data collection, statistical method

EN 

   EN 

   EUROPEAN COMMISSION  Brussels, 7.9.2016  SWD(2016) 288 final   COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT  IMPACT ASSESSMENT  Accompanying the document Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council  amending Regulation (EU) No 99/2013 on the European statistical programme 2013-17, by extending it to 2018-20 {COM(2016) 557 final} {SWD(2016) 287 final}  
 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 

1. 

1.1. 

1.2. 

1.3. 

2. 

2.1. 

2.2. 

INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 4 

Objectives ..................................................................................................................... 4 

Context .......................................................................................................................... 4 

Programme evaluations ................................................................................................ 4 

WHAT IS THE PROBLEM AND WHY IS IT A PROBLEM? ................................................. 5 

Problem tree .................................................................................................................. 6 

The issue: filling statistical gaps to support EU policies .............................................. 6 

2.2.1 

Timeliness ..................................................................................................................... 6 

2.2.2   Relevance ...................................................................................................................... 7 

2.2.3   Cost and burden ............................................................................................................ 8 

2.3. 

Problem drivers ........................................................................................................... 10 

2.3.1 

The current statistical infrastructure is not flexible enough ....................................... 10 

2.3.2 

3. 

3.1. 

The European Statistical System (ESS) partnership does not yet deliver sufficient 
cost savings because of lack of investment ................................................................ 11 

WHY SHOULD THE EUROPEAN UNION ACT? ............................................................. 11 

Legal basis .................................................................................................................. 11 

3.1.1  Article 338 of the Treaty ............................................................................................. 11 

3.1.2  Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 (amended) .................................................................. 12 

3.2. 

EU added value ........................................................................................................... 12 

3.2.1 

Ensuring the comparability of statistics used for the monitoring of EU policies ....... 12 

3.2.2 

Economies of scale ..................................................................................................... 13 

4. 

5. 

5.1. 

WHAT SHOULD BE ACHIEVED? .................................................................................. 13 

WHAT ARE THE VARIOUS OPTIONS TO ACHIEVE THE OBJECTIVES? ......................... 14 

Option 1: Same European statistical programme (ESP) (2013-2017) extended for 
three years 2018-2020 (baseline scenario) ................................................................. 15 

5.2. 

Option 2: Extension of the current ESP with adaptations .......................................... 15 

5.2.1  Option 2a: Amendments of the current ESP and reduced annual budget compared 

with the current ESP ................................................................................................... 15 

5.2.2  Option 2b: Amended programme including improved statistical outputs to align 
statistical production with the Commission’s 10 political priorities, balanced by 
strong re-prioritisation (same annual budget as the current ESP) .............................. 15 

5.2.3  Option 2c: Amended programme including new statistical outputs to align statistical 

production with the Commission’s 10 political priorities, complemented by major 
initiatives to reduce the burden on respondents and costs to national statistical 
institutes (European approach to statistics, and investment in infrastructure and new 
sources), and increased annual budget compared with the current ESP. .................... 17 

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5.3 

6. 

Option 3: Two separate programmes .......................................................................... 19 

WHAT ARE THE IMPACTS OF THE DIFFERENT POLICY OPTIONS AND WHO WILL BE 
AFFECTED? ................................................................................................................. 19 

6.1 

Stakeholders ................................................................................................................ 19 

6.1.1 

Stakeholder categories and types of impact ................................................................ 19 

6.1.2  Matching stakeholder category with the types laid down in the minimum standards 

(identified in the Commission’s Better Regulation guidelines) ................................. 21 

6.2 

6.3 

6.3.1 

6.3.2 

6.3.3 

Other impacts .............................................................................................................. 22 

Impact of the options .................................................................................................. 23 

Impact of Option 1: Same European statistical programme (2013-2017) extended for 
three years 2018-2020 (baseline scenario) ................................................................. 23 

Impact of Option 2a: Amendments of the current ESP and reduced annual budget 
compared with the current ESP .................................................................................. 24 

Impact of Option 2b: Amended programme including new statistical outputs to align 
statistical production with the Commission’s 10 political priorities, balanced by 
strong re-prioritisation (same annual budget as the current ESP) .............................. 24 

6.3.4 

Impact of Option 2c: Amendments of the current ESP and higher annual budget than 
the current ESP (to strengthen the European statistical infrastructure) ...................... 26 

6.3.5 

Impact of Option 3: two separate programmes ........................................................... 29 

7. 

7.1 

7.2 

8. 

8.1 

HOW DO THE OPTIONS COMPARE? ............................................................................ 30 

Multi-criteria analysis ................................................................................................. 30 

Financial envelope of the extension of the ESP to 2018-2020 ................................... 32 

HOW WOULD ACTUAL IMPACTS BE MONITORED AND EVALUATED? ......................... 33 

Current monitoring ..................................................................................................... 33 

8.1.1 

ESP and annual work programme .............................................................................. 33 

8.1.2 

Twice-yearly monitoring ............................................................................................ 33 

8.1.3  Key performance indicators (KPIs) ............................................................................ 34 

8.1.4 

ESP 2013-2017 intermediate evaluation .................................................................... 34 

8.1.5 

ESP final evaluation ................................................................................................... 35 

8.2 

Improving the monitoring ........................................................................................... 35 

8.2.1 

Time coverage ............................................................................................................ 35 

8.2.2 

Timeliness and punctuality ......................................................................................... 35 

9. 

ANNEXES ..................................................................................................................... 37 

Annex 1 Procedural information on the process to prepare the impact assessment report and 

the related initiative .................................................................................................... 37 

Annex 2  Stakeholder consultation ............................................................................................ 40 

Annex 3  Who is affected by the initiative and how ................................................................. 59 

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Annex 4  Analytical model used in preparing the Impact Assessment ..................................... 60 

Annex 5  Budgetary impacts of the different policy options ..................................................... 65 

Annex 6  List of abbreviations .................................................................................................. 68 

Reference documents ................................................................................................................ 69 

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1. 

INTRODUCTION 

1.1. 

Objectives 

This impact assessment concerns the proposal to extend the European statistical programme 
(ESP) 2013-2017 to the period 2018-2020. The impact assessment also serves the purpose of 
an ex ante evaluation. 

Under  Regulation  (EC)  No  223/2009  on  European  statistics,1  the  ESP  duration  should 
correspond  to  that  of  the  multiannual  financial  framework,  currently  covering  the  period 
2014-2020. Given that the current ESP terminates in 2017, an extension of the programme is 
necessary. Therefore, the impact assessment is not about whether to extend the ESP but about 
how to extend it. 

The objectives of this initiative are to provide high-quality statistical information to support 
the  development,  monitoring  and  evaluation  of  European  Union  policies  and  to  build  the 
European  Statistical  System’s  permanent  capacity  to  respond  faster  to  new  needs,  in 
particular those stemming from the Commission’s political priorities. 

1.2. 

Context 

The European Commission’s action is anchored in the 10 political priorities of its Agenda for 
Jobs,  Growth,  Fairness  and  Democratic  Change.  The  political  response  to  the  profound 
economic  crisis  and  its  social  impact  has  fuelled  demands  for  better  economic  and  social 
policies. These must be based on robust and comparable evidence. Evidence-based decisions 
are  especially  important  for  the  performance  management  of  EU  policies.  On  numerous 
occasions,  and  recently  in  the  ECOFIN  Council  conclusions  of  8  December  2015,  the 
Council  has  stressed  the  importance  of  official  statistics  as  essential  for  policymaking.  It  is 
also outlined in the 2015 report from the European Statistical Governance Advisory Board, 
‘EU  policy  and  institutions  rely  on  statistical  indicators  to  set  quantitative  objectives  and 
thresholds. EU economic policy coordination is a prime example of this.’2 

Official statistics in the EU are rooted in the Treaties, specifically in Article 338 of the Treaty 
on the Functioning of the European Union. Under the amended Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 
on  European  statistics,  European  statistical  programmes  provide  the  framework  for  the 
development,  production  and  dissemination  of  European  statistics  and  the  main  fields  and 
objectives to be pursued. The ESPs lay down priorities on the information needs to carry out 
EU activities, and they also set the budget for implementing the programme. 

Programme evaluations 

1.3. 
The evaluation of the Community statistical programme 2008-12,3 the mid-term evaluation of 
the  European  statistical  programme  2013-20174  and  final  evaluations  of  the  MEETS 
programme  for  the  modernisation  of  European  enterprise  and  trade  statistics5  have  been 
thoroughly analysed. 

The main recommendations of the evaluation of the Community statistical programme 2008-
12  were  the  following:  need  for  a  more  specific  formulation  of  general,  specific  and 
operational objectives, with causal link and hierarchical relations; a careful analysis of costs 
and  merits  upon  which  to  base  strategic  choices;  and  need  to  inform  users  on  decisions 

1 Regulation (EU) 2015/759 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2015 amending 
Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics. OJ L 123, 19.5.2015, p. 90-97. 

2 Annual Report 2015 available on ESGAB homepage http://ec.europa.eu/esgab. 
3 COM(2013) 883 final. 
4 COM(2015) 309 final. 
5 COM(2014) 444 final. 

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regarding negative priorities. Eurostat should be given an explicit mandate to implement the 
European  Statistical  System’s  Vision  2020.  Most  recommendations  are  already  reflected  in 
ESP 2013-2017. 

The  ESP  2013-2017  mid-term  evaluation  concluded  that  the  programme  is  generally  well 
implemented, with 17 of the 23 detailed objectives being well on track for completion. The 
programme  offers  good  EU  added  value,  is  run  efficiently,  responds  to  user  needs  and  is 
consistent with other statistical programmes. For instance, the move towards new methods for 
the  production  of  statistics  helps  the  approaches  used  throughout  the  European  Statistical 
System. The  mid-term evaluation puts  forward three  recommendations  to  guide  and further 
optimise the programme’s implementation: 

  give particular attention to those objectives where problems have been encountered; 

  secure sufficient resources to maintain the necessary level of investment to modernise 

the production of European statistics; and 

 

identify and implement projects at EU level that can maximise EU added value. 

2. 

WHAT IS THE PROBLEM AND WHY IS IT A PROBLEM? 

Official statistics are in great demand. Their production and dissemination respect principles 
that bring specific added value to the user compared with other information sources. Official 
statistics  are  more  reliable  because  their  collection  and  production  respect  very  demanding 
quality  criteria6  (relevance,  accuracy,  timeliness,  punctuality,  accessibility  and  clarity, 
comparability  and  coherence),  while  also  ensuring  the  privacy  of  data  providers  and  the 
confidentiality  of  information.  Official  statistics  are  objective  because  the  methodology 
followed to  produce  them is  fully known and  respects  professional  independence. They are 
also impartial because they are disseminated in a professional, neutral and transparent manner 
in which all users have equal access to statistical releases. 

Demands for European statistics, as a subgroup of official statistics, are increasing. Decision-
makers  –  at  EU  level,  in  Member  States,  in  local  governments  and  in  business  –  need 
European statistics. A reliable statistical evidence basis is indeed necessary to prepare, apply, 
monitor and assess all EU policies. The public and media also need statistics for an accurate 
picture of contemporary society and to evaluate the performance of policies and politicians. 
Finally, European statistics are an invaluable source of information for academic researchers 
interested in social and economic developments in Europe. 

6 As laid down in Article 12 of Regulation 223/2009 on European statistics. 

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2.1. 

Problem tree 

Figure 1: Problem tree illustrating the issue and problem drivers 

2.2. 

The issue: filling statistical gaps to support EU policies 

Following  the  consultation  of  users  conducted  as  part  of  this  impact  assessment,  it  appears 
that a number of statistical gaps need to be filled to support EU policies. Two quality aspects 
of European statistics — timeliness and relevance — constitute particular challenges. There 
is an urgent need to improve the timeliness of some statistics so as to support the European 
Semester.  The  needs  arising  from  the  10  Commission  priorities  and  from  the  increasing 
complexity of societies challenge the relevance of current European statistics. In parallel, it is 
also  important  to  recognise  that  the  production  of  high-quality  statistics  costs  money  and 
generates a burden on respondents. 

2.2.1  Timeliness 

Some  European  statistics  feed  almost  automatically  into  the  EU  monitoring  of  national 
policies  (Stability  and  Growth  Pact,  Macroeconomic  Imbalances  Procedure,  European 
Semester). Statistics have to be delivered sooner than before to be taken into account for the 
country-specific  recommendations.  If  timeliness  is  not  improved,  the  risk  is  that  some 
Directorates-General  involved  in  the  European  Semester  process  and  in  the  preparation  of 
country  reports  will  rely  on  statistics  provided  by  sources  other  than  Eurostat  (e.g.  private 
sector  data  collectors).  These  statistics  do  not  offer  the  same  independence,  robustness  and 
reliability as European statistics because, for example, they are not produced according to the 
European statistics Code of Practice.7 This means that, for a part of the official information 
published  by  the  Commission  in  the  context  of  the  European  Semester  and  the  country-
specific  recommendations,  there  is  less  assurance  as  to  the  quality  of  the  information 

7 The Code builds on a common definition of quality in statistics used in the European statistical system. It sets 
the standards for developing, producing and disseminating European statistics. 
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/quality/european-statistics-code-of-practice. 

7 

 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                            
 
presented,  information  that  is  subsequently  used  to  support  decision-making.  Areas  for 
improvement include: 

  Social  indicators  (in  particular  on  inequalities,  poverty  and  social  exclusion)  are 
expected  to  be  delivered  sooner  than  before  in  order  to  feed  into  the  European 
Semester.  Urgent  action  is  needed  to  ensure  these  indicators  are  available  in  good 
time. 

  Statistics on research, development and innovation are very important for monitoring 
performance  under  the  European  Semester.  For  example,  if  they  were  delivered 
earlier, datasets on R&D expenditure that are used in the analytical reports that feed 
into 
in  country-specific 
recommendations. 

the  Semester  would  be  better 

into  account 

taken 

  Changes  in  the  design  of  European  energy  markets  require  energy  statistics  that  are 

comparable and available in good time if they are to support the energy union. 

  Although it is more an issue of frequency than timeliness, population projections are a 
key data source for the calculation of potential growth and fiscal sustainability. This 
has clear and immediate implications for economic and budgetary surveillance in the 
EU. Eurostat currently updates population projections at three-year intervals but more 
frequent  updates  of  these  projections  are  being  requested  by  key  users,  in  particular 
for migration patterns. 

2.2.2  Relevance 

New needs arise from the Commission’s 10 political priorities: 

 

In  line  with  the  key  priorities  on  growth  and  job  creation,  skills,  mobility,  and  the 
reduction  of  poverty  and  social  exclusion,  social  indicators  should  help  in 
strengthening the EU social dimension and European monetary union and the analysis 
of the social impact of macroeconomic policies. 

  To  support  the  priority  to  ‘Boost  jobs,  growth  and  investments’,  further  statistical 
work  is  needed  to  analyse  the  impact  on  growth  and  employment  of  technological 
change and innovation. 

  Statistics  on  online  cross-border  selling  are  needed  for  the  priority  ‘Digital  single 
market’.  In  particular,  there  is  a  need  for  more  detailed  information  on  accessing 
services  provided  by  intermediaries  in  content  distribution,  on  the  trust  in  online 
platforms  and  intermediaries,  and  on  barriers  faced  by  households  for  cross-border 
purchases. 

  To  support  the  priority  ‘A  deeper  and  fairer  economic  and  monetary  union’,  a 
harmonised house price index and related statistics are increasingly important in the 
context  of  assessing  Member  States’  structural  reforms.  This  is  why  users  request 
further efforts to expand its scope and quality. 

  One  of  the  10  priorities  is  to  ‘Strengthen  the  role  of  the  EU  as  a  global  actor’. 
Statistics should help the EU to steer and monitor the impact of its external policies 
and  assistance  programmes,  and  to  contribute  to  good  governance  and  democratic 
debate in partner countries. 

New needs reflect the complexity of societies: 

  Policymakers  and  the  general  public  are  demanding  more  statistics,  often  in  new 
domains,  reflecting the growing  complexity of economies and societies. As a recent 

8 

 
 
 
 
example,  the  European Parliament’s  Committee  on  Economic  and  Monetary  Affairs 
highlighted  the  need  for  more  Europe-wide  statistics  that  are  more  comprehensive, 
methodological comparable, accurate and timely.8 From the consultation of users and 
respondents organised with the European Statistical Advisory Committee,9 it appears 
that new needs arise for a variety of reasons. These include the economic and social 
crisis, globalisation, a more diverse Europe both between and within Member States 
(regionalisation), and interest for information on distribution rather than averages (e.g. 
distribution  of  income  more  important  than  average  income).  Users  identified  the 
need  to  improve  statistics  in  specific  areas  such  as  migration,  productivity,  value 
chains and social indicators, in particular poverty. 

  Users want statistics that reflect the complexity of our economy. The construction of 
the  European  Union  and  the  increasing  interdependence  of  world  markets  are 
changing  the  structure  of  European  economies:  with  globalisation,  a  reality  has 
emerged that  still  has to be captured by official statistics. The 2013 Sturgeon report 
Global Value Chains and Economic Globalisation10 and the 2013 OECD report on the 
interconnectedness of economies11 reveal data gaps. These could be addressed by the 
European Statistical System to provide insight on the origins and destinations of the 
inputs and outputs of economic production, the composition and sourcing of business 
functions and the structure of production chains. 

  Users  demand  a  sufficient  illustration  of  the  business  economy.  The  economic 
importance of service industries has increased in absolute and relative terms over the 
last 10 years. Statistics on services, which represent around 70 % of the economy, are 
still underdeveloped.12 

  The  new  worldwide  Sustainable  Development  Goals,13  which  were  adopted  by  the 
United Nations in 2015, give rise to further requirements on statistics measuring the 
distribution  of  income,  consumption  and  wealth;  measuring  quality  of  life  in  a 
multidimensional  way;  measuring  inequalities  between  women  and  men;  and 
environmental sustainability. 

2.2.3  Cost and burden 

Producing  high-quality  statistics  has  a  cost.  The  consultation  of  producers  of  European 
statistics (in particular national statistical institutes) clearly shows that they have seen drastic 
cuts in their resources in recent years. As a result, there is actually little capacity for statistical 
systems to respond faster to new needs in a manner that is sustainable over time. 
As  outlined  in  the  European  Statistical  Governance  Advisory  Board’s  2015  report14,  ‘the 
production  of  high‑quality  official  statistics  is  by  nature  costly,  as  it  requires  many  highly 
skilled staff. As data sources, technologies and statistical analysis become more diverse and 
sophisticated,  the  work  demands  investment  in  IT  infrastructure  and  methodological 
development.  NSIs  [national  statistical  institutes]  are  competing  with  better‑resourced 

8 Opinion of 8 September 2015 of the ECON Committee on the general budget of the EU for 2016,  
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=%2f%2fEP%2f%2fNONSGML%2bCOMPARL%2bP

E-560.918 %2b04 %2bDOC%2bPDF%2bV0 %2f%2fEN. 

9 See Annex 2 on consultations. 
10 http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/54610/4463793/Sturgeon-report-Eurostat. 
11 http://www.oecd.org/sti/ind/interconnected-economies-GVCs-synthesis.pdf. 
12 http://www.oecd.org/std/prices-ppp/Eurostat-OECD%20SPPI%20Guide%20Provisional%20Draft.pdf. 
13 https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/. 
14  Annual Report 2015 available on the ESGAB homepage http://ec.europa.eu/esgab. 

9 

 
 
 
 
                                                            
private‑sector businesses to attract staff with relatively scarce new skills, particularly in data 
science.’ 

The  response  burden  caused  by  statistical  data  collections  is  an  important  issue  for 
businesses, but also concerns citizens as survey respondents. Moreover, the principle that the 
response  burden  should  be  proportionate  to  the  needs  of  users  and  not  excessive  for 
respondents  is  enshrined  in  principle  9  of  the  European  statistics  Code  of  Practice15,  and 
keeping the response burden to a minimum is a continuous effort of the European Statistical 
System.  Burden  reduction  and  simplification  is  also  at  the  heart  of  the  modernisation 
programme that is the ESS Vision 2020, which aims to replace traditional surveys with new 
data  sources,  in  particular  administrative  ones,  to  exploit  synergies  and  to  implement  more 
modern and efficient production methods. 

In the public consultation, public authorities and registered organisations asked that reduction 
of  administrative  burden  becomes  a  priority.  They  indicated  that  burden  on  respondents 
should not increase. 

Evidence  from  Germany,  where  a  comprehensive  measurement  of  administrative  burden  is 
being conducted using the Standard Cost Model, shows that the share of official statistics in 
the  overall  burden  for  businesses  is  less  than  1%16.  The  share  of  administrative  burden 
stemming  from  European  statistical  legislation  is  even  lower,  since  many  Member  States 
undertake additional statistical surveys, or collect data at a higher level of detail than required 
by European legislation. National statistical offices have also put in place several measures to 
reduce  the  actual  and  perceived  burden  on  both  businesses  and  citizens,  for  example  by 
applying  rolling  sampling  schemes  to  ensure  that  a  respondent  does  not  participate  in  a 
survey every year. 

When looking at the development of statistical response burden over time, it is evident that 
simplifications  of  both  EU  and  national  legislation  and  the  efforts  of  national  statistical 
offices had a positive effect over the past years. A “barometer of burdens” maintained by the 
Federal  Statistical  Office  in  Germany  indicates  that  the  response  burden  from  official 
statistics – adjusted for short-term economic effects – declined by 10% from 2006 to 2013, 
the latest year for which data is currently available.17 

In  order  to  further  reduce  the  burden  on  respondents  as  well  as  the  costs  for  national 
statistical institutes, the European statistical programme includes a continuous priority-setting 
mechanism  for  the  European  Statistical  System.  In  particular,  Article  6  of  Regulation  (EU) 
No 99/2013 on the current European statistical programme  (ESP 2013-2017)  stipulates that 
“the  Commission  shall,  in  the  preparation  of  the  annual  work  programmes  referred  to  in 
Article 9, ensure effective priority-setting and an annual review of, and report on, statistical 
priorities.” Each year, Eurostat proposes to the Member States statistical items to be included 
in the priority-setting for the next year and reports on the priority-setting actions completed in 
the  past  year.  The  decisions  are  taken  by  the  European  Statistical  System  Committee.  The 
priority-setting measures and actions are defined in four categories: 

  Repealing/modifying legal acts 

  Stopping voluntary data collections based on gentlemen’s agreements 

15 http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/quality/european-statistics-code-of-practice. 
16 Vorgrimler et al. (2015): Measuring the response burden of official statistical surveys for businesses. AStA 9, 

p. 59-71. 

17https://www.destatis.de/EN/FactsFigures/Indicators/BureaucracyCosts/Results/BarometerOfBurdens/Baromet

erOfBurdens.html 

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  Review aiming at reduction and other simplification actions 

  Other non-statistical areas to be stopped and reduced 

While these measures have been effective in limiting the costs of producing statistics and the 
overall response burden, the issue of costs and burden remains high on the agenda. Therefore, 
any new demands for statistical information must take this into account. The extension of the 
European statistical programme will have to include further modernisation efforts to enable 
the  national  statistical  offices  to  make  better  use  of  administrative  and  other  emerging  data 
sources (e.g. big data) and find innovative solutions to accommodate the new user needs for 
more timely and relevant information. 

Eurostat, in cooperation with the National Statistical Institutes of the Member States took a 
step forward and initiated a cost analysis of the European statistics. The results of the project 
will be an additional element of the annual exercise of priority-setting. 

2.3. 

Problem drivers 

2.3.1  The current statistical infrastructure is not flexible enough 

The current statistical infrastructure at European level is not flexible enough to deliver new 
statistics when needed, while still holding back costs and burden. 

Major  efforts  have  been  undertaken  by  the  national  statistical  systems  in  Member  States  to 
modernise  their  production  methods  and  to  improve  their  responsiveness  to  new  statistical 
demands.  These  efforts  are  supported  by  the  European  statistical  programme  (ESP)  2013-
2017.  This  programme’s  mid-term  evaluation18  underlined  that  the  move  towards  new 
methods for the production of European statistics helps the approaches used throughout the 
European  Statistical  System.  However,  in  a  context  of  constrained  resources,  this  has  only 
helped to partially solve the problem. 

As  highlighted  in  the  Commission  Communication  Towards  a  thriving  data-driven 
economy,19 a new industrial revolution driven by digital data, computation and automation is 
emerging.  Human  activities,  industrial  processes  and  research  lead  to  data  collection  and 
processing  on  an  unprecedented  scale  spurring  new  products  and  services  as  well  as  new 
business processes and scientific methodologies. New data sources offer a huge potential to 
improve  the  timeliness  and  relevance  of  official  statistics  as  well  as  to  reduce  response 
burden. 

In the ESS Vision 2020,20 European Statistical System producers acknowledge that new data 
sources (such as big data) offer a unique potential for statistics. However, they also note that 
this  potential  cannot  be  reaped  by  statisticians  on  their  own,  due  to  the  multidisciplinary 
character of big data. Capabilities and skills to effectively explore this type of data are still 
missing, which delays their integration into the system. Systematic efforts are still lacking, in 
particular on training and partnership (including the sharing of expertise between statisticians, 
academics and owners of private data sources). 

The statistical infrastructure still has to undergo a significant transformation to gain flexibility 
and harness the potential of big data and new technologies. 

18 COM(2015) 309 final 
19 COM(2014)442 final 
20 http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/ess/about-us/ess-vision-2020. 

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2.3.2  The  European  Statistical  System  (ESS)  partnership  does  not  yet  deliver 
sufficient cost savings because of lack of investment 

The ESP 2013-2017 mid-term evaluation underlined that implementing projects that reform 
the methods used for producing European statistics is having an effect on the approaches used 
throughout the European Statistical System. This modernisation process is moving away from 
the traditional way of producing statistics – based on numerous parallel processes, country by 
country  and  domain  per  domain  –  and  aims  at  better  coordinating  the  work  carried  out  by 
statistical  offices  so  as  to  fully  exploit  potential  synergies.  However,  the  gains  are  not  yet 
sufficient to cope with the new demands. 

The ESS Vision 2020 shows a common understanding of the challenges and recognises the 
willingness  of  the  producers  of  European  statistics  to  modernise  it.  It  promotes  an  all-
inclusive  approach  in  search  of  quality  and  efficiency  gains  and  builds  upon  the  European 
systems’  method  for  compiling  statistics.  It  embraces  the  opportunities  provided  by  the 
digital transformation and emerging data sources; it puts quality as an overarching element in 
the statistical production process; it suggests new modes of collaboration; and it emphasises 
the importance of dissemination and user engagement to spur continuous improvements. 

The ESP 2013-2017 mid-term evaluation report also recommended that more resources must 
be  invested  in  the  European  Statistical  System.  This  would  enable  national  statistical 
institutes to participate actively in projects designed to modernise the production of European 
statistics – and to implement their results – while ensuring regular statistical production. The 
process  of  modernising  the  production  of  statistics  offers  a  way  of  tackling  the  issue  of 
limited  or  decreasing  resources.  However,  it  too  requires  initial  investment  in  order  to 
advance  at  the  desired  speed  and  to  guarantee  the  system’s  long-term  sustainability.  In  the 
consultation, producers highlighted developments related to big data and open data: changes, 
innovations  and  improvements  require  additional  financial  investments  (methodology, 
adaptation and matching of IT tools, training of employees, etc.) 

This is also confirmed by the European Statistical Governance Advisory Board’s 2015 report. 
It  states  that  ‘the  economic  crisis  is  leaving  the  ESS  under-resourced  and  hampering  its 
ability to take advantage of the data revolution’. The report also highlights an example from 
outside  Europe:  the  Australian  Bureau  of  Statistics  is  receiving  government  investment  of 
AUD 250 million  (about  EUR 160 million)  over  five  years  to  transform  the  infrastructure, 
systems and processes used to produce official statistics. 

3. 

WHY SHOULD THE EUROPEAN UNION ACT? 

3.1. 

Legal basis 

3.1.1  Article 338 of the Treaty 

The right for the Commission to propose actions on European statistics has its basis in Article 
338 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Under this Article, Parliament 
and Council – as co-legislators – are to adopt measures for the production of statistics where 
necessary for the performance of EU activities. The shared competence between the EU and 
Member  States  is  justified  by  the  need  to  ensure  the  high  quality  and  comparability  of 
statistics  underpinning  EU  policies  and  by  the  transnational  character  of  many  aspects  of 
statistics in general, of European statistics in particular. 

3.1.2  Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 (amended) 

The European Statistical System has a programming stage and an implementation stage. 

12 

 
 
 
 
 
 
The programming stage is laid down explicitly in Article 13 of Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 
on  European  statistics,  which  stipulates  that  the  ‘European  Statistical  Programme  shall 
provide  the  framework  for  the  development,  production  and  dissemination  of  European 
statistics, setting out the main fields and the objectives of the actions envisaged for a period 
corresponding to that of the multiannual financial framework’. The ESP is to be adopted by 
the  European  Parliament  and  the  Council,  which  in  itself  ensures  the  highest  degree  of 
democratic control. The reason why the direct involvement of the co-legislators is required is 
to  be  found  in  the  subject  matter  covered  by  the  programme.  The  European  statistical 
programme  sets  out  the  entire  framework  and  priorities  for  European  statistics  for  the 
programme’s  duration  and  also  sets  the  budget  to  cover  that  period.  Eurostat  annual  work 
programmes are based on the ESP. 

The  implementation  stage  is  provided  for  in  Article  14  of  Regulation  (EC)  No  223/2009, 
which  stipulates  that  the  ESP  is  to  be  implemented  by  ‘individual  statistical  actions’  as 
decided  by:  the  European  Parliament  and  the  Council;  the  Commission  under  specific 
conditions; or  agreements between national statistical institutes or  other  national authorities 
and the Commission (Eurostat) (‘ESS agreements’). 

3.2. 

EU added value 

3.2.1  Ensuring the comparability of statistics used for the monitoring of EU policies 

Data is the key resource of the 21st century, and official statistics are part of the fundamental 
infrastructure of modern societies and are a public good. EU policies have a direct impact on 
the  economies  of  Member  States  and  the  well-being  of  its  citizens.  The  design, 
implementation  and  monitoring  of  these  policies  rely  on  impartial,  reliable  and  relevant 
statistical evidence that can only be provided by the European Statistical System governed by 
EU Regulations defining the quality criteria and comparable methodology to be applied by all 
Member States when producing official statistics. 

The main added value of official statistics is being an indispensable foundation of evidence-
based  policy-making.  While  the  costs  of  statistics  are  measurable  and  are  incurred 
immediately, the indirect benefits cannot be quantified and are often realised in the long-term 
only.  Therefore, the total costs for statistics also need  to  be viewed against  the costs to  the 
economy of having no comparable and reliable statistics, or statistics that are not relevant.  

Only a coordinated approach to the development, production and dissemination of European 
statistics  – as provided  for in  the European statistical  programme  –  guarantees the required 
coherence and comparability of the statistics relevant for EU activities.  

At  European  level,  only  the  Commission  can  coordinate  the  necessary  harmonisation  of 
statistical  information  at  the  European  level  in  all  statistical  domains.  The  data  collection 
itself is carried out by Member States, but following the same harmonised principles in order 
to have comparable data to support EU policies. Consequently, the EU may adopt measures 
in  accordance  with  the  principle  of  subsidiarity  as  set  out  in  Article  5  of  the  Treaty  on 
European Union (TEU). 

Furthermore,  the  specific  added  value  of  the  proposed  action  would  be  to  make  essential 
contributions to some EU activities, in particular the Commission’s 10 political priorities. 

13 

 
 
 
 
 
3.2.2  Economies of scale 

The  action  also  contributes  to  an  effective  use  of  resources  and  to  supporting  national 
authorities  in  the  development  of  their  capacity,  for  example  in  harmonisation  and 
methodologies. 

The  mid-term  evaluation  of  ESP  2013-2017  recommended  identifying  and  implementing 
projects  at  EU  level  that  can  maximise  EU  added  value.  The  EuroGroups  register,  the 
SIMSTAT (single market statistics) project and the census hub are some examples of projects 
that  have  benefited  from  increased  collaboration  between  Eurostat  and  national  statistical 
institutes,  made  possible  through  collaborative  approaches  such  as  the  European  Statistical 
System collaboration networks. 

In the ESS Vision 2020, national statistical institutes recognised that, for specific steps in the 
statistical  production  process,  the  same  methods  and  tools  can  be  used  across  national 
statistical systems. Well-established examples include seasonal adjustment, disclosure control 
and  administrative  data  validation  methods.  The  European  Statistical  System  can  explore 
other domains where common tools would be beneficial, in particular when dealing with new 
technology-driven  areas  like  big  data,  open  data  and  visualisation  techniques.  Appropriate 
methods  must  be  designed  to  consider  selectivity  and  bias  issues.  Statistical  methods  to 
minimise  identification  risks  are  a  significant  area  for  development,  along  with  data 
visualisation and dissemination techniques that put users in the driving seat. 

Efforts  to  modernise  and  streamline  statistical  production  can  best  be  initiated  with  a 
harmonised  approach  at  EU  level,  and  carried  out  by  the  European  Statistical  System  with 
optimal efficiency gains and quality improvements. This is fully in line with the ESS Vision 
2020 and its mission as stated in the European statistics Code of Practice,21 and is particularly 
important in a context of scarce resources where efforts to strengthen cooperation to explore 
synergies, exchange good practices and avoid duplication of work are of utmost importance. 

4. 

WHAT SHOULD BE ACHIEVED? 

The purpose of extending the current European statistical programme 2013-2017 is to provide 
the  necessary  legislative  framework  for  the  development,  production  and  dissemination  of 
European statistics for the remaining duration of the multiannual financial framework (MFF) 
and to ensure that priority demands for new statistics and additional modernisation activities 
are  taken  on  board.  Furthermore,  the  initiative  will  ensure  that  the  European  Statistical 
System  receives  the  financial  support  needed  to  attain  the  objectives  laid  down  in  the 
European statistical programme. 

The European statistical programme 2018-2020 will take over the specific objectives of ESP 
2013-2017 and adjust them to a newly emerged environment. The programme will cover the 
following: 

  Objective  1:  Provide  high-quality  statistical  information  necessary  to  support  the 
development,  monitoring  and  evaluation  of  EU  policies  and  serving  the  needs  of  a 
wide range of users. 

Under  this  objective,  timeliness  (problem  1)  and  relevance  (problem  2)  will  be 
addressed, and the most urgent statistical gaps will be closed focussing on a number 
of priority areas in line with the Commission’s 10 political priorities. 

21 http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-manuals-and-guidelines/-/KS-32-11-955. 

14 

 
 
 
 
                                                            
  Objective  2:  Implement  new  methods  to  produce  European  statistics  aiming  at 

efficiency gains and quality improvements. 

This objective will enable building the permanent capacity needed to respond faster to 
emerging needs (problem driver 1) and harness the potential of new data sources, by 
adapting the statistical infrastructure. 

  Objective  3:  Strengthen  the  partnership  within  the  European  Statistical  System  and 
beyond in order to further enhance its productivity (problem driver 2) and its leading 
role in official statistics worldwide. 

The development of skills and the extension of partnerships to new players to support 
the  take-up  of  new  data  sources  by  official  statistics  will  be  facilitated  under  this 
objective, 

All  these  objectives  are  consistent  with  other  EU  policies,  and  are  in  fact  supporting  EU 
policies  by  ensuring  that  the  statistical  evidence  needed  to  design,  implement  and  monitor 
these policies will be delivered through the European statistical programme. 

In the different policy options in section 5, the link of the main problems and their drivers to 
these  objectives  are  established,  while  the  analysis  of  impacts  in  section  6  assesses  which 
policy  option  emerges  as  the  preferred  option  to  address  the  problems  and  to  ensure  the 
achievement of specific objectives in the period 2018-2020. 

As  the  European  statistical  programme  is  a  horizontal  initiative,  the  Commission  is  also 
considering  launching  three  initiatives  covering  the  specific  domains  of  agricultural,  social 
and business statistics under the REFIT programme of the Commission. These initiatives are 
designed to be complementary to the modernisation efforts envisaged under the initiative to 
extend the European statistical programme, by simplifying and streamlining the fragmented 
regulations on agricultural statistics, social surveys on persons and households, and business 
statistics,  and  to  render  the  data  collections  more  efficient,  more  flexible,  and  less 
burdensome for respondents in these domains. The implementations of these domain-specific 
initiatives can however only be achieved in the medium to longer term and will therefore go 
beyond the timeframe of the extended programme 2018-2020. 

5. 

WHAT ARE THE VARIOUS OPTIONS TO ACHIEVE THE OBJECTIVES? 

As  mentioned  in  Section  1.1,  the  establishment  of  a  multiannual  European  statistical 
programme  is  a  legal  requirement  under  Article  13(1)  of  Regulation  (EC)  No 223/2009. 
Thus, an extension of the ESP 2013-2017 is needed to cover the remainder of the MFF period 
(2018  until  2020).  The  policy  options  indicating  three  possible  main  directions  for  action 
have been identified as set out below. 

5.1. 

Option  1:  Same  European  statistical  programme  (ESP)  (2013-2017)  extended 
for three years 2018-2020 (baseline scenario) 

This option has been considered as the baseline scenario against which other options can be 
compared.  This  option  implies  no  change  in  terms  of  statistics  planned  (Objective  1),  the 
framework for adapting the statistical infrastructure (Objective 2) or partnerships (Objective 
3).   

15 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The  programme  would  cover  the  period  2018-2020  with  no  changes  to  the  planned  annual 
budgets under the MFF (see Annex 5). 

5.2. 

Option 2: Extension of the current ESP with adaptations 

The option refers to an extended ESP for the period 2018-2020 that will keep the structure of 
the current programme while taking into account the possible ways to harness the potential of 
big data for producing statistics, the ESS Vision 2020 and the new needs of users.  

This  option  would  see  changes  of  both  the  programme  content  and  its  budget.  To  some 
extent,  Option  2  can  be  considered  as  providing  a  different  scope,  in  particular  with  the 
possibility of a re-prioritisation of current statistical outputs. 

5.2.1  Option  2a:  Amendments  of  the  current  ESP  and  reduced  annual  budget 
compared with the current ESP 

Although this option was initially considered, it was discarded at an early stage, since it does 
not  sufficiently  address  the  problems  identified  in  Section  2.  It  would  entail  a  drastic 
reduction  in  the  level  of  ambition  for  the  detailed  objective  ‘multipurpose  statistics  and 
efficiency gains’, in particular for ‘new data sources’ (no investment on big data) and would 
be detrimental to the timeliness and relevance of the data. 

It has emerged from the consultation of national statistical institutes that – under this option – 
requirements  related  to  Objective  2  would  be  met  much  less  than  expected  for  all  Member 
States.  In  some  countries,  it  is  possible  that  no  modernisation  project  would  be  taken  up. 
Activities related to implementation of ESS Vision 2020, since they depend on EU funding, 
would be seriously jeopardised without sufficient budgetary support. The cost of big data (IT 
infrastructure,  higher  IT,  statistical  and  other  skills)  and  developments  in  open  data,  were 
particularly highlighted. 

5.2.2  Option  2b:  Amended  programme  including  improved  statistical  outputs  to 
align statistical production with  the Commission’s 10 political  priorities, balanced 
by strong re-prioritisation (same annual budget as the current ESP) 

This option would see a significant re-prioritisation of current statistical outputs to facilitate 
improvement (in particular, timeliness) of existing statistics in order to satisfy users’ needs. 
However, in order to accommodate new actions without additional resources, some existing 
data  collections  would  need  to  be  significantly  reduced  in  scope  and  coverage  (less 
information,  reduced  geographical  breakdowns  or  periodicity).  The  possible  reductions  are 
based  on  an  in-depth  analysis  of  the  costs and  relative  merits  of  these  statistics.  Under  this 
approach, the relative merits of all statistical products of Eurostat have been assessed using 
different criteria such as policy use, quality, multi-purpose use, or legal requirements. For the 
costs  of  the  statistical  products,  the  operational  budget  as  well  as  human  resources  and 
indirect costs have been taken into account. As a result of the cost-merit exercise, statistics 
with high costs and/or relatively low merits have been identified, which could be reduced in 
both  scope  and  coverage  in  order  to  re-allocate  resources  for  the  production  of  new  or 
improved statistical outputs. However, it needs to be underlined that some policy users have 
expressed a high interest in the statistics that could be reduced under this policy option, which 
ultimately would require trading new policy needs for improvements in timeliness and some 
specific areas for existing needs in other areas. 

As  part  of  the  re-prioritisation  of  statistical  outputs,  the  following  possible  new  actions  to 
close the most urgent data gaps would be launched: 

16 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Improve  substantially  the  timeliness  of  data  about  inequality,  poverty  and  material 
deprivation of people in Europe, for instance through flash estimates on the distribution of 
household income that are fit for purpose for the European Semester. 

  Enlarge  the  production  of  statistics  on  energy  (efficiency,  security,  renewables, 
consumption, prices, etc.) to accompany the strategic framework for the energy union and 
improve their timeliness (e.g. issuing flash estimates on energy balances). 

 

Improve  the  quality,  coverage  and  timeliness  of  environmental  data  to  support  climate 
change  policy  and  the  circular  economy  package  and  to  support  the  UN  Sustainable 
Development Goals. 

Table  1:  Proposed  actions  under  Option  2b  for  the  various  objectives  of  the  European 
statistical programme 

Objective 1 
(statistical 
outputs) 

Improved outputs, based on a prioritisation of user needs: 

• 

Improve the timeliness of data about inequality, poverty and 
material deprivation 

•  Enlarge the production of statistics on energy and improve their 

timeliness 
Improve quality and timeliness of environmental data 

• 

Significant reduction in the scope of work on, and support to Member 
States, on: 

ICT statistics (reduction in the periodicity) 

•  Purchasing power parities 
•  Waste statistics 
•  Fisheries 
•  Forestry 
• 
•  Key indicators on European cities 
•  Crime and criminal justice 
•  Agro-environment 
•  Tourism 
•  Population projection (regional component) 

Objective 2 
(modernisation) 

The objective remains the same as in the ESP 2013-2017 but the actions 
are mainly focused on basic infrastructure and pilot projects for 
modernisation. 

Objective 3 
(partnership) 

The objective remains the same as in the ESP 2013-2017. 

17 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
5.2.3  Option  2c:  Amended  programme  including  new  statistical  outputs  to  align 
statistical  production  with  the  Commission’s  10  political  priorities,  complemented 
by  major  initiatives  to  reduce  the  burden  on  respondents  and  costs  to  national 
statistical 
in 
infrastructure  and  new  sources),  and  increased  annual  budget  compared  with  the 
current ESP. 

(European  approach 

to  statistics,  and 

investment 

institutes 

Objective  1  (statistical  outputs):  new  and  improved  statistical  outputs  taking  into  account 
emerging needs of users. 

 

Improve  substantially  the  timeliness  of  data  about  inequality,  poverty  and  material 
deprivation of people in Europe, for instance through flash estimates on the distribution of 
household income that are fit for purpose for the European Semester. 

  Enlarge  the  production  of  statistics  on  energy  (efficiency,  security,  renewables, 
consumption, prices, etc.) to accompany the strategic framework for the energy union and 
improve their timeliness (e.g. issuing flash estimates on energy balances). 

 

Improve  the  quality,  coverage  and  timeliness  of  environmental  data  to  support  climate 
change  policy  and  the  circular  economy  package  and  to  support  the  UN  Sustainable 
Development Goals. 

  Build a broad information base to develop better statistics on the drivers for technological 
change  and  innovation,  e-commerce,  online  interactions,  and  the  link  to  relevant  policy 
priorities such as growth, employment, and creation of new business opportunities. 

  Produce population projections in relation to the sustainability of public finance. 

  Extend harmonised housing price statistics. 

  Extend coverage of statistics on the services sector. 

 

Improve statistics provided for analysis of globalisation. 

Changes to Objective 2 (new methods of production):   

The investment in statistical infrastructure would be focused on the following areas: 

 

It  is  proposed  to  launch  a  central  EU  social  survey  by  making  use  of  the  European 
approach  to  statistics  provided  for  in  Article  16  of  Regulation  (EC)  No  223/2009  on 
European statistics. European statistics are usually based on national  data produced  and 
disseminated  by  national  statistical  authorities  in  all  Member  States.  The  European 
approach to statistics is a pragmatic strategy that facilitates the compilation of European 
statistical  aggregates,  representing  the  EU  or  the  euro  area  as  a  whole,  of  particular 
importance  for  EU  policies.  The  aim  is  to  maximise  the  availability  of  statistical 
aggregates  at  European  level  and  improve  the  timeliness  of  European  statistics  while 
reducing  the  burden  on  national  statistical  authorities.  In  concrete  terms,  the  European 
approach  to  statistics  makes  it  possible  to  produce  European  statistics  by  using 
unpublished  national  contributions  or  national  contributions  from  a  subset  of  Member 
States, by use of specifically designed surveys or by use of modelling techniques. Such an 
approach would typically be pertinent for strengthening the statistical base in support of a 
‘triple-A’ social Europe. It could be done by launching a  general  EU social survey that 
would be centrally managed at European level so as to increase data quality and improve 
access  to  vulnerable  groups,  e.g.  migrants,  people  with  disabilities.  This  genuine 
European approach has so far been used in very limited cases only, such as the LUCAS 
survey to produce statistics on land use and cover (a statistical survey carried out under 

18 

 
 
 
 
the direct responsibility of Eurostat) or the calculation by Eurostat of purchasing power 
parities  on  the  basis  of  information  provided  by  Member  States.  The  increased  budget 
provided for under Option 2c would enable preparatory work for the development of this 
EU survey to be done. 

  Harness the potential of digital developments, notably as regards the take-up of new data 
sources.  Innovate  through  the  analysis,  design  and  testing  of  technological  foundations 
for the production  of smart  statistics in  a context  of fully digitised societies  and greater 
interactions between the web, the web of data and a multitude of smart environments (big 
data, internet of things, smart cities, industry 4.0, etc.) 

  Develop data analytics capabilities and visual analytics to produce statistics more quickly 

using big data and digital technologies. 

 

Innovate through new dissemination and visualisation tools that could be re-used in other 
domains and policy initiatives (such as the open government data initiative) and provide 
dissemination services to other Commission Directorates-General. 

  Strengthen  the  European  statistical  infrastructure  through  projects  that  build  on  the 
experience  gained  in  the  European  system  of  interoperable  statistical  business  registers 
(EuroGroups register) and the census hub. 

  Develop  the  capacities  to  deliver  more  and  better  services  and  products  (such  as  on-
demand statistics) to underpin, design and monitor EU polices especially in the areas of 
competitiveness,  the  circular  economy,  agriculture  and  food  policy,  and  regional 
development. These new products and services would be based on linking and analysing 
data already collected and stored in Eurostat. 

  Develop  and  share  among  statistical  authorities  new  methodological  and  IT  tools  and 

ensure wider use of administrative data and data-linking techniques. 

Changes to Objective 3 (partnerships): 

  Disseminating relevant statistical data to support the European neighbourhood policy and 

the relevant association agreements. 

Table  2:  Proposed  actions  under  Option  2c  for  the  various  objectives  of  the  European 
statistical programme 

Objective 1 
(statistical 
outputs) 

New and improved outputs: 

• 

Improve the timeliness of data about inequality, poverty and 
material deprivation of people in Europe (including flash 
estimates) 

•  Enlarge the production of statistics on energy (efficiency, security, 
renewables, consumption, prices, etc.) and improve their timeliness 
Improve quality and timeliness of environmental data to support 
climate change policy and the circular economy 

• 

Improve annual population projections 

•  Measure UN Sustainable Development Goals 
•  Support drivers for technological change and e-commerce 
• 
•  Extend housing price statistics 
•  Extend coverage of statistics on the services sector 
•  Measure globalisation 

19 

 
 
 
 
 
 
Same outputs compared to ESP 2013-2017 (no reduction envisaged) 

Objective 2 
(modernisation) 

EU social survey to increase substantially the timeliness and comparability 
of social indicators and preparatory work for the European approach to 
statistics  
Statistics on demand and dissemination as a service 

Modernisation including new sources (big data)  
Basic infrastructure and pilot projects for modernisation 
Partnership 

Objective 3 
(partnership) 

5.3  Option 3: Two separate programmes 

This  option  is  similar  to  the  objectives  and  work  planned  under  Option  2b.  However,  it 
focuses on a different way to manage the programmes, with two different programmes, one 
of them dealing with modernisation only: 

  An extension of the current ESP to cover the years 2018-2020 and alignment with the 
timeline  of  the  multiannual  financial  framework,  without  the  modernisation  aspects 
(Objective 2 of the current ESP). 

  A separate programme focusing on modernisation and development of the European 
statistical infrastructure. The content would be similar to Objective 2 of Option 2b. It 
is not possible to envisage a different timeline for the second programme (e.g. beyond 
2020)  because  the  timeline  is  determined  by  the  current  multiannual  financial 
framework ending in 2020. 

6.  WHAT  ARE  THE  IMPACTS  OF  THE  DIFFERENT  POLICY  OPTIONS  AND  WHO 
WILL BE AFFECTED? 

6.1  Stakeholders 

6.1.1  Stakeholder categories and types of impact 

This section will review how the different stakeholder groups will be affected. 

Producers of European statistics 

National statistical institutes (NSIs) and other national authorities (ONAs) are the producers 
of European statistics. The extension of the European statistical programme will affect them 
in  two  ways:  developing  new  statistics  may  entail  costs,  but  they  may  benefit  from  shared 
tools and infrastructure at European level. 

First, developing new statistics or improvement of these statistics is likely to entail costs 
for national producers. This needs to be given particular attention given the current resource 
constraints  at  national  level.  New  developments  can  be  financially  supported  by  the 
programme,  but  co-financing  is  required  on  the  side  of  NSIs.  However,  new  or  improved 
statistical  outputs  would  have  very  limited  or  no  costs  for  producers  in  two  cases:  if  the 
statistical  output  is  based  on  already  existing  data;  and  if  Eurostat  carried  out  and  funded 
directly  an  EU  survey,  such  as  the  survey  to  produce  statistics  on  land  use  and  cover 
(LUCAS). 

On the other hand, national producers would benefit from shared tools and infrastructure 
at  EU  level.  In  the  ESS  Vision  2020,  NSIs  recognised  that  —  for  specific  steps  in  the 

20 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
statistical production process — the same methods and tools can be used across NSIs. Well-
established examples include seasonal adjustment, disclosure control and administrative data 
validation and quality methods. 

Survey respondents 

Statistics  are  still  largely  produced  on  the  basis  of  surveys  of  households  and  businesses, 
which  entails  a  burden  (time  and  money  spent).  Administrative  burden  has  become  a 
significant political issue in the last 20 years. In 2006, the Commission’s Communication on 
reduction  of  the  response  burden,  simplification  and  priority-setting  in  the  field  of 
Community statistics22 identified priority areas for simplification. With the Better Regulation 
package adopted in May 2015, the Commission confirmed that ‘Legislation should do what it 
is intended to do, it should be easy to implement, provide certainty and predictability and it 
should avoid any unnecessary burden’. It mentioned in particular the ongoing work to limit 
the burden stemming from business statistics. 

In  addition  to  the  actual  burden,  the  perceived  burden  (‘annoyance’)  should  be  taken  into 
account. A high-perceived burden could result in decreasing response rates. 

Users of European statistics 

include  national  and  European  organisations,  namely:  national 
Institutional  users 
governments,  other  Commission  services,  European  Parliament  and  the  Council,  European 
Economic and Social Committee, European Central Bank, national central banks, Committee 
of the Regions, European Trade Union Confederation, Confederation of European Business, 
and the European Data Protection Supervisor. 

Non-institutional  users,  which  may  include  individuals  belonging  to  an  institution,  include 
the following groups, according to their interest in statistics:   

  Users with a general interest: Journalists and media, the general public, students and 

teachers; 

  Users  with  a  specific  interest:  Decision-makers,  methodologists,  marketing  analysts 

and users interested in a particular domain/field; 

  Users  with  a  research  interest:  Scientific  community  (professors  and  researchers, 
universities  and  research  institutions),  consultants  and  researchers  in  governmental 
agencies and private sector, experts in a specific field. 

The  main  quality  aspects  that  are  important  for  users  and  set  out  in  the  European  statistics 
Code of Practice are timeliness, relevance and comparability. 

Timeliness:  timeliness  (or  time  lag)  refers  to  the  period  between  the  availability  of  the 
information  and  the  event  or  phenomenon  it  describes.  In  the  public  consultation,  public 
authorities  in  particular  commented  on  the  timeliness  of  European  statistics,  e.g.  in  some 
cases, a significant lag before statistics are available was observed. It is particularly important 
to shorten the production time since out-of-date statistics are of less interest. 

Relevance: European statistics meet the needs of users. In the context of the programme, it 
includes  the  following  questions:  does  the  scope  of  European  statistics  correspond  to  the 
needs  of  users?  What  does  the  programme  cover  in  terms  of  user  interaction,  user-friendly 
dissemination and targeted products and services? 

22 COM(2006) 693 final. 

21 

 
 
 
                                                            
Comparability/harmonisation:  European  statistics  are  consistent  internally,  over  time  and 
comparable between regions  and countries. It is possible to combine and  make  joint  use  of 
related data from different sources. 

Table 3: Summary of main impacts by stakeholder group 

Main stakeholders  Main types of impact 

Producers 

Costs and/or administrative burden 

Benefits from a shared infrastructure at EU level 

Respondents  

Response burden 

Users 

Satisfaction of needs related to data timeliness  

Satisfaction of needs related to data relevance 

Satisfaction of needs related to comparability of the statistics at EU 
level 

These  impacts  will  be  further  analysed  in  the  following  section  and  used  as  criteria  in  the 
comparison of options. The cost for the EU budget and human resources (HR) will also be 
considered. 

6.1.2  Matching  stakeholder  category  with  the  types  laid  down  in  the  minimum 
standards (identified in the Commission’s Better Regulation guidelines) 

Affected by the 
policy 

Will have to 
implement the 
policy 

Have a stated 
interest in the 
policy 

Producers 
institutes 
authorities) 

(national 

and 

other 

statistical 
national 

Respondents (businesses) 

Respondents (households) 

Users (institutional) 

Users with a general interest 

Users with a specific interest 

Users with a research interest 

22 

 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
 
6.2  Other impacts 

Economic impacts (indirect): this initiative will lead to a more efficient statistical evidence 
base (e.g. globalisation, services sector, innovation) for policies that contribute to stimulating 
and consolidating economic growth. 

Social  impacts  (indirect):  this  initiative  will  lead  to  an  improved  assessment  of  the  social 
impact  of  economic  decisions  on  policies.  Impacts  on  levels  of  employment  and 
unemployment,  the  trend  in  levels  of  poverty  and  the  labour  market  in  general  will  be  of 
particular  interest.  Improved  timeliness  of  social  indicators  combined  with  existing 
macroeconomic  indicators  will  enable  a  more  integrated  and  efficient  analysis  of  such 
decisions. 

Example: new statistics can help to better target unemployment: 

Eurostat recently developed and published three new indicators to supplement the 
unemployment rate, providing a better and richer picture than the traditional labour status 
framework (see figure 2). These indicators are: underemployed part-time workers; jobless 
people seeking a job but not immediately available for work; and jobless people available for 
work but not seeking it. These new indicators shed a new light on people affected by 
unemployment but who are not directly captured through the unemployment rate. This 
provides a more complete picture of the labour market and enables better targeted social and 
employment policies. 

Figure 2: ILO labour statuses and new supplementary indicators, EU-28, age 15-74, 2014 

Source: Eurostat (http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-
explained/index.php/Underemployment_and_potential_additional_labour_force_statistics)  

Environmental  impacts  (indirect):  this  initiative  will  facilitate  policies  that  contribute  to 
sustainable growth by providing improved energy and environmental statistics. 

Impacts on competitiveness and innovation (indirect): the initiative will improve the link 
to  policy-relevant  outputs  such  as  growth,  employment,  and  the  creation  of  new  business 
opportunities.  It  will  also  promote  the  drivers  for  technological  change  and  innovation  by 
providing relevant statistics. 

23 

 
 
 
 
 
 
Impacts  on  non-EU  countries,  international  trade  or  investment:  The  initiative  will 
address  cooperation  with  international  organisations  and  capacity  building  in  non-EU 
countries.  This  will  ensure  that  good  quality  data  are  available  for  the  monitoring  of 
enlargement  and  European  neighbourhood  policies,  to  measure  the  compliance  with 
European  standards  in  the  area  of  statistics  of  countries  negotiating  and  potentially 
negotiating to  join the EU, and potential  candidate countries.  It will support both them and 
the European Neighbourhood countries in their efforts to provide good quality data that meet 
European standards. 

6.3 

Impact of the options 

This section analyses the impact of the policy options on the main stakeholder groups and the 
EU budget. For each stakeholder group, the impact is assessed through one or several of the 
following criteria elaborated in section 6.1.1: 

Impact on users: 

 
 
 

Increased timeliness  
Increased relevance  
Increased harmonisation 

Impact on producers: 

  Reduced costs for the ESS 
  Level of shared infrastructure 

Impact on respondents: 

  Reduced burden 

In addition, the impact on the EU budget and human resource costs at European level is an 
assessment criterion, which is linked to  the other criteria since modernisation activities  and 
the use of new data sources will require initial investments. 

The  expected  impact  (=  performance)  of  the  policy  options  on  the  different  assessment 
criteria is expressed on a scale from 0 (no impact) to 30 (highest impact), while the direction 
of the impact for each criterion can be positive (1), neutral (0) or negative (-1). The scores are 
listed for each policy option and then used for the multi-criteria analysis in section 7. 

6.3.1  Impact  of  Option  1:  Same  European  statistical  programme  (2013-2017) 
extended for three years 2018-2020 (baseline scenario) 

Impact on users 

Increased timeliness (performance 15/30, direction 1): Some actions under Objective 1 of the 
existing European statistical programme (ESP) 2013-2017 aim at increasing the timeliness of 
data, for example ‘Provide high-quality statistical information, which should be available in 
a  timely  manner,  to  monitor  the  implementation  of  Europe  2020’,  and  ‘the  redesign  of 
agricultural data  collection processes,  in  particular  with  the objective of  improving quality 
and  timeliness  of  the  data  provided’.  Objective  2  of  the  current  programme  (related  to 
modernisation) also contributes indirectly to improving the timeliness of statistics. Therefore, 
a  continuation  of  the  current  programme  would  have  a  positive  impact  on  timeliness, 
although  the improvements  would remain  limited  to  on-going activities and could not  been 
extended to additional domains or data collections.  

24 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Increased relevance (performance 10/30, direction -1): Since this option will not close any of 
the  data  gaps  identified,  several  DGs  underlined  in  the  consultation  that  this  option  would 
risk limiting the programme’s relevance if it could not accommodate the new needs arising 
from the political agenda. 

Increased harmonisation (performance 15/30, direction 1): The current programme includes 
measures  for  further  harmonisation,  such  as,  under  Objective  2,  ‘further  harmonisation  of 
statistical  concepts  across  statistical  domains’  and  ‘the  development  of  methodological 
standards in order to increase use and availability of harmonised methodologies (including 
mixed-mode  approaches 
to  data  collection)  and  harmonised  metadata’.  Therefore, 
continuing  the  current  programme  would  have  a  positive  impact  on  the  harmonisation  and 
comparability of statistics. 

Impact on producers 

Reduced  costs  for  the  ESS  (performance  5/30,  direction  1):  Some  production  costs  for 
national statistical systems would be reduced based on the modernisation efforts provided for 
under  Option  1.  However,  these  gains  will  be  limited  since  in  practice  the  modernisation 
efforts will mainly focus on pilot projects and feasibility studies.   

Level  of  shared  infrastructure  at  EU  level  (performance  5/30,  direction  1):  Continuing  the 
same  programme  would  entail  some  development  of  the  shared  infrastructure.  However, 
some  activities  related  to  implementation  of  ESS  Vision  2020,  as  they  depend  on  ESS 
funding,  would  be  postponed  in  the  absence  of  sufficient  budgetary  support.  Changes, 
innovations  and  improvements  require  additional  financial  investments  (methodology, 
adaptation  and  matching  of  IT  tools,  staff  training,  etc.)  The  ESP  2013-2017  mid-term 
evaluation  recommended  securing  sufficient  resources  to  maintain  the  necessary  level  of 
investment to modernise the production of European statistics. 

Impact on respondents 

Reduced  burden  (performance  5/30,  direction  1):  Based  on  actions  provided  for  under 
Objective 2, in particular to support ‘the greater use of appropriate administrative data in all 
statistical areas’, some burden reduction can be expected. 

Impact  on  EU  budget  &  human  resource  (HR)  costs  (performance  5/30,  direction  1):  This 
option requires stable EU investment and HR costs (see Annex 5). 

6.3.2  Impact  of  Option  2a:  Amendments  of  the  current  ESP  and  reduced  annual 
budget compared with the current ESP 

This option was discarded at an early stage (see section 4). 

6.3.3  Impact of Option 2b: Amended programme including new statistical outputs 
to  align  statistical  production  with  the  Commission’s  10  political  priorities, 
balanced by strong re-prioritisation (same annual budget as the current ESP) 

Impact on users 

Increased  timeliness  (performance  12/30,  direction  1):  Compared  to  option  1,  timeliness  is 
expected  to  improve  in  some  additional  areas,  since  the  three  proposed  new  actions  —  on 
inequality/poverty,  energy  and  environment  —  all  focus  on  timeliness.  However,  without 
additional resources from the EU budget, some modernisation projects would be only piloted, 

25 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
with  limited  benefits  on  timeliness  by  2020.  Moreover,  re-prioritisation  would  lead  to 
reduced periodicity and/or timeliness in other domains (e.g. ICT statistics). 

Increased  relevance  (performance  8/30,  direction  1):  The  relevance  of  the  data  for  social, 
energy and environmental statistics will be improved due to new developments in these areas. 
However,  the  necessary  reduction  in  the  scope  of  work  in  other  domains  will  negatively 
affect users with a particular interest in these areas. In particular, the relevance and reliability 
of  purchasing  power  parities  data  will  be  severely  affected  by  the  reduction  in  scope  and 
support to Member States. Their use in the context of structural and cohesion funds, and for 
correction  coefficients  for  staff  salaries  and  pensions,  might  be  put  seriously  at  risk. 
Relevance will also be reduced in several domains due to the reductions in the coverage and 
breakdowns  of  the  data.  Furthermore,  several  of  the  new  data  needs  would  not  be 
accommodated due to a lack of resources. 

Increased harmonisation (performance 15/30, direction 1): The current programme includes 
measures  for  further  harmonisation,  such  as  ‘further  harmonisation  of  statistical  concepts 
across  statistical  domains’  and  ‘the  development  of  methodological  standards  in  order  to 
increase  use  and  availability  of  harmonised  methodologies  (including  mixed-mode 
approaches  to  data  collection)  and  harmonised  metadata’  under  Objective  2.  Therefore, 
continuing the current programme will extend the positive impact on the harmonisation and 
comparability  of  statistics.  In  areas  where  the  scope  of  work  will  be  reduced,  however, 
comparability could be affected. 

Impact on producers 

Reduced costs for the ESS (performance 10/30, direction 1): Some production costs borne by 
national  statistical  institutes  would  be  reduced  based  on  the  modernisation  efforts,  but  the 
leverage  effects  would  be  very  limited  since  these  efforts  would  mainly  focus  on  pilot 
projects  and  feasibility  studies.  As  the  level  of  EU  funding  for  grants  to  national  statistical 
institutes to finance modernisation efforts and statistical actions would remain unchanged, no 
additional contributions from Member States to co-finance EU spending would be required. 

Level of shared infrastructure at EU level (performance 10/30, direction 1): The consultation 
of national statistical institutes indicated that, under this option, several Member States would 
be  able  to  meet  most  of  the  requirements  under  Objective  1,  but  requirements  related  to 
Objective 2 would not meet all expectations. Activities related to the implementation of ESS 
Vision  2020,  as  they  depend  on  EU  co-financing,  would  be  postponed  in  the  absence  of 
sufficient  budgetary  support.  Changes,  innovations  and  improvements  require  additional 
financial  investments  (methodology,  adaptation  and  matching  of  IT  tools,  staff  training  of 
employees, etc.) 

Under  this  option,  several  Member  States  underlined  the  need  to  re-prioritise  current 
statistical  outputs  under  Objective  1,  as  new  statistics  need  to  be  developed.  Effective  re-
prioritisation  would  release  resources  for  innovation  and  new  statistical  outputs  but  will 
reduce the quantity of available statistics. This would also recognise that Member States are 
operating with reduced budgets. If some activities under the existing programme period are to 
be finalised by end-2017, it may be necessary to consider a transfer of these resources to the 
new objectives. In some areas, re-prioritisation could mean less financial support for national 
statistical institutes.   

Impact on respondents 

Reduced  burden  (performance  7/30,  direction  1):  Mainly  through  on  actions  provided  for 
under Objective 2, in particular to support ‘the greater use of appropriate administrative data 
in all statistical areas’, some burden reduction can be realised in the medium-term. 

26 

 
 
 
Example of burden reductions: The ADMIN project was launched in 2013 and is expected to 
run  until  2019.  The  project  has  a  dual  purpose:  to  support  the  Member  States  to  reap  the 
benefits  of  using  administrative  data  sources  for  the  production  of  official  statistics,  and  to 
promote  the  quality  of  the  output  produced  using  administrative  sources,  in  particular  the 
comparability  of  the  statistics  required  for  European  purposes.  Consequently,  the  project 
would foster common processes and common quality standards.  

Its  main  expected  benefit  is  a  reduction  in  the  burden  on  respondents  through  an  increased 
use of administrative sources, which will increasingly replace traditional data collections in 
some  domains.  The  burden  reductions  for  enterprises  and  citizens  will  however  materialise 
only gradually over time, as more and more data will be taken from administrative sources. 
Across  Member  States,  the  magnitude  of  the  burden  reductions  will  vary  depending  on  the 
availability and level of access to suitable administrative data sources. 

Impact on EU budget & human resource (HR) costs  (performance 2/30, direction -1): This 
option requires  stable  EU  investment  for  the  operational  budget  (see Annex  5)  and  a  slight 
increase in HR costs (to cover new qualifications, training). 

6.3.4  Impact  of  Option  2c:  Amendments  of  the  current  ESP  and  higher  annual 
budget than the current ESP (to strengthen the European statistical infrastructure) 

Impact on users 

Increased  timeliness  (performance  23/30,  direction  1):  This  option  would  have  the  most 
positive impact on timeliness, with new actions focusing on increased timeliness for statistics 
on  inequality,  poverty  and  material  deprivation,  for  energy  and  environmental  data. 
Furthermore, the planned EU social survey and potential outcomes of the better exploitation 
of big data will lead to faster availability of statistical information.   

Example: Added-value of the new EU social survey for users 

 

 

Increased timeliness: central management by Eurostat would significantly reduce the time 
lag from the moment a policy need is identified to the production of statistical estimates 
by Eurostat. 

Increased  relevance  by being  more  responsive  to  user  needs:  the  common  methodology 
and central administration of the survey would enable a more flexible management of its 
content and so a quicker response to emerging needs. Also, the frequency can be flexible 
(e.g. annual or multiannual) in response to need or available resources. 

  Users  would  get  European  statistics  on  topics  not  previously  covered:  the  survey  could 
cover  areas  that  were  never  previously  covered,  or  surveyed  only  by  DGs  —  or  by 
agencies  —  other  than  Eurostat.  Depending  on  actual  survey  design,  users  would  get 
more  European  statistics  about  sub-populations  not  previously  covered  or  those  with 
limited coverage, e.g. vulnerable groups such as migrants, and people with disabilities. As 
policy  priorities  evolve, the  actual  subject  matter  areas  covered  would  be  selected  from 
those most needed at the time of the survey wave design (gap analysis). 

  Users  will  be  assured  of  comparability  of  data  among  countries.  The  central  survey 
administration would make it much easier to assure comparability  of data and metadata 
across  Member  States  through  tighter  central  control  of  separate  data  collections  and 
intrinsic common methodology. 

27 

 
 
 
 
 
Increased relevance (performance 24/30, direction 1): Data relevance is expected to increase 
significantly  with  investment  in  new  areas,  re-prioritisation,  an  action  to  enhance  the 
capacities to deliver more and better services and products (such as on-demand statistics),  as 
well as enhanced dissemination. 

Example: on-demand statistics 

In  response  to  European  Commission  priorities  and  the  ESS  Vision  2020  objectives,  the 
service approach aims to maximise the value of the portfolio of statistical data and products 
by creating an  additional layer of statistical services targeted at the main policy users. This 
layer  would  include  ad  hoc,  tailored  statistical  services  and  the  production  of  on-demand 
statistics based on existing datasets. 

Example: Big Data:  

Using the digital  traces left  by people when using their mobile phone, official  statistics  are 
starting to get timelier and more detailed tourism statistics. The number of visitors entering 
countries  can  be  obtained  in  a  fraction  of  the  time  it  traditionally  takes,  and  for  specific 
regions instead of the whole country. In the future, this data source could be combined with 
high-quality  statistical  tools  so  as  to  have  very  timely  statistics  on  population  mobility,  on 
their daily trips to work, and their use of the roads system — and even migration flows at a 
level of spatial and temporal detail never before possible. 

Using the information companies make available on the internet, data on job vacancies and 
prices  can  be  collected.  In  combination  with  traditional  statistical  tools,  taking  the  pulse  of 
the  economy  will  be  possible  in  near  real-time.  There  are  many  more  thematic  examples 
(health,  transport,  energy,  unemployment,  culture,  etc.)  that  demonstrate  the  power  of 
blending official statistics and big data for the benefit of better policymaking. 

Increased  harmonisation  (performance  25/30,  direction  1):  Harmonisation  is  expected  to 
increase in all new areas to be covered under Objective 1. 

Impact on producers 

Reduced  costs  for  the ESS  (performance  15/30,  direction 1):  For  most  Member  States,  this 
option  will  help  to  meet  the  requirements  under  Objectives  1  and  2.  It  will  enable  the 
necessary amendments to modernise the European Statistical System and to harness big data 
sources  for  the  production  of  statistics.  Option  2c  is  relevant  for  future  demands  by 
policymakers and society. 

In its 2015 annual report,23 the European Statistical Governance Advisory Board highlighted 
in  particular  the  need  to  invest  in  the  statistical  infrastructure.  It  gave  as  a  benchmark  the 
example of the Australian government’s recent decision to invest around EUR 160 million in 
its national statistical infrastructure. 

Thus,  an  increase  in  the  ESP  budget  under  this  option  is  justified  by  the  need  to  finance 
projects  responding  to  new  challenges  faced  by  European  statistics.  These  include 
implementation  of  the  ESS  Vision  2020  objectives,  strengthening  the  European  statistical 

23 Available at http://ec.europa.eu/esgab. 

28 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                            
infrastructure, developing new solutions for a framework regulation on integrating business 
statistics  (FRIBS),  the  planned  new  round  of  censuses  in  2020,  the  forthcoming  integrated 
European  social  statistics,  the  agricultural  census  (Farm  Structure  Survey  2020)  and  the 
implementation of statistical units in statistical registers and statistics. 

Due to the co-financing of grants, a higher budget for the ESP at EU level also implies higher 
budgetary  needs  for  the  own  contributions  of  national  statistical  institutes.  As  this  option 
foresees an increase in the operational budget by EUR 29 million per year (see Annex 5 for 
details),  around  EUR  13,5  million  per  year  could  be  spent  on  grants  to  national  statistical 
institutes. As the co-financing rates vary from 5 % to 30 %, all national statistical institutes 
together  would  need to  contribute  a  maximum  of  EUR  4  million  per year in  addition.  This 
means that the additional annual co-financing costs per national statistical institute would be 
in the magnitude of a five- to six-digit amount. 

It  needs  to  be  underlined  that  in  high-level  consultations,  all  Member  States  welcomed  the 
option  to  provide  additional  EU  funding  especially  for  modernisation  actions,  as  the 
additional resources – while requiring upfront investments – would yield efficiency gains that 
would lead to sustained cost savings for the national statistical institutes in the longer term. 

In  order to manage new  modernisation projects,  highly  skilled expertise will  be required in 
national statistical institutes, either from within the organisation (i.e. through reallocation of 
staff) or through external recruitment.   

The  launch  of  the  EU  social  survey  foreseen  under  this  option  would  not  entail  additional 
costs on Member States, as it would be financed entirely from the EU budget.   

Level of shared infrastructure at EU level (performance 20/30, direction 1):  

Under  this  option,  in  addition  to  meeting  the  requirements  under  Objective  1,  the  level  of 
shared  infrastructure  would  be  significantly  enhanced  through  large-scale  modernisation 
activities implemented in the context of the ESS VISION 2020 and other actions that depend 
on additional resources to leverage the adaptation of production systems and IT tools across 
the ESS. 

Impact on respondents 

Reduced burden (performance 20/30, Direction 1): While the EU social survey would have a 
minimal  impact  on  the  response  burden  of  the  general  public,  a  significant  reduction  is 
expected  from  the  better  use  of  administrative  data  and  new  sources  such  as  big  data.  The 
total  combined  burden  reductions  depend  on  the  successful  implementation  of  the 
modernisation  activities  foreseen  under  Option  2c,  but  overall  this  option  has  the  greatest 
potential  to  accelerate  the  trend  of  decreasing  response  burden  (see  section  2.2.3)  from 
official statistics. 

With  regard  to  businesses  and  small  and  medium-sized  enterprises  (SMEs),  major  burden 
reductions have been quantified in the impact assessment on the proposal for a Regulation on 
European Business Statistics24. This REFIT initiative aims to streamline the current statistical 
regulations related to businesses and to significantly simplify statistical reporting obligations. 

Impact of the EU social survey: The respondents to the survey (individuals, households – no 
businesses)  would  incur  a  response  burden  from  the  time  spent  to  reply  to  the  survey. 

24 The impact assessment was submitted to the Regulatory Scrutiny Board on 3 May 2016. 

29 

 
 
 
 
 
                                                            
However,  the  sample  for  the  survey  would  only  include  respondents  who  participate  on  a 
voluntary basis, therefore no direct administrative burden would incur. Moreover, the burden 
on survey respondents would be more than offset by the planned discontinuation of various 
surveys on similar topics currently undertaken by other Commission services. The common 
methodology and paradata (administrative data about the survey) would also enable precise 
measurement of the impact of the survey, and its management and mitigation by verifying the 
methodology, size and frequency of the survey and/or its modules. 

Impact of the big data project: The project will prepare the technological base for the future 
system  of  official  statistics,  where  data  capture,  analysis  and  processing  –  respectively  the 
digital footprints of the activity – will be embedded in the activity itself. Moreover, statistics 
would be included in future technical systems and networks by design. This approach would 
completely transform the production system for official statistics. The project will consist of 
cases of concrete use in various domains (energy, transport, employment, health, population, 
economics, consumption, etc.) and will develop all-inclusive solutions for the production of 
smart  official  statistics.  One  of  the  main  expected  outcomes  of  this  project  is  a  sustained, 
reduced burden on respondents to be realised in the medium-term. 

Impact on EU budget & human resource (HR) costs (performance 15/30, direction -1): This 
option  requires  an  increased  EU  investment  of  EUR  29  million  per  year  on  average  and  a 
slight  increase  in  funds  to  cover  HR  costs  (new  qualifications,  training).  Only  additional 
investments would ensure the development of new statistical outputs and more timely data as 
requested  by  policy-users  without  cutting  other  statistics  of  high  relevance.  Moreover, 
additional  investments  in  the statistical  infrastructure (both  in  Member  States  and Eurostat) 
would  be  needed  to  facilitate  the  use  of  new  data  sources  for  the  production  of  statistical 
information  tailored  to  users’  needs,  which  will  reduce  the  administrative  costs  and  the 
response  burden.  For  details  on  the  breakdown  of  the  additional  budget  by  the  different 
objectives, see Annex 5. 

6.3.5  Impact of Option 3: two separate programmes 

As  mentioned  in  Section  5,  this  option  does  not  differ  in  terms  of  the  objectives  and  work 
planned  under  Option  2b.  It  rather  focuses  on  a  different  way  to  manage  the  programmes, 
with two different programmes, one of them dealing with modernisation only. 

Therefore,  the  impact  is  relatively  similar  to  that  of  Option  2b.  For  this  option,  one  should 
also  take  into  account  two  specific  risks:  a  risk  of  duplication  or  overlap  of  projects,  and 
administrative overheads. The reduced efficiency is reflected in the assessment below. 

The administrative overheads for the management of two programmes, including consultation 
for annual plans and reporting, would be high. This is confirmed by the previous experience 
of  managing  in  parallel  the  programme  for  the  modernisation  of  European  enterprise  and 
trade  statistics  2009-13  (MEETS)  and  the  Community  statistical  programme  2008-12. 
Considering the cost of managing two programmes, some internal resources would need to be 
shifted from statistical production and modernisation projects to programme management. 

Impact on users 

Increased timeliness (performance 10/30, direction 1): timeliness is expected to improve in 
some areas, since the proposed new actions focus primarily on timeliness. However, with an 
unchanged  budget,  it  also  means  that  some  modernisation  projects  would  only  be  piloted, 

30 

 
 
 
 
 
 
with  limited  benefits  on  timeliness  by  2020.  Moreover,  the  shift  of  some  resources  to 
programme management would limit the positive impact. 

Increased relevance (performance 5/30, direction 1): data relevance will be slightly reduced, 
due  to  the  loss  in  efficiency  that  arises  from  managing  two  programmes.  Many  new  needs 
would not be accommodated. 

Increased harmonisation (performance 15/30, direction 1): the current programme includes 
measures  for  further  harmonisation,  such  as  ‘further  harmonisation  of  statistical  concepts 
across  statistical  domains’  and  ‘the  development  of  methodological  standards  in  order  to 
increase  use  and  availability  of  harmonised  methodologies  (including  mixed-mode 
approaches  to  data  collection)  and  harmonised  metadata’  under  Objective  2.  Therefore, 
continuing  the  current  programme  would  have  a  positive  impact  on  the  harmonisation  and 
comparability of statistics. 

Impact on producers 

Reduced  costs  for  the  ESS  (performance  5/30,  direction  1):  some  production  costs  for 
national statistical institutes would be reduced based on the modernisation efforts. However, 
they  would  be  very  limited  since  these  efforts  would  only  focus  on  pilot  projects  and 
feasibility studies and with the risk of inefficiency and duplication of the two programmes.   

Level of shared infrastructure at EU level (performance 10/30, direction 1): the consultation 
of NSIs indicated that, under this option, several Member States would be able to meet most 
of  the  requirements  under  Objective  1,  but  requirements  related  to  Objective  2  would  not 
meet  all  expectations.  Activities  related  to  implementation  of  ESS  Vision  2020,  as  they 
depend on ESS funding, would be postponed in the absence of sufficient budgetary support. 
Changes, 
investments 
(methodology,  adaptation  and  matching  of  IT  tools,  training  of  employees,  business  trips, 
etc.) 

require  additional 

innovations  and 

improvements 

financial 

Impact on respondents 

Reduced  burden  (performance  7/30,  direction  1):  based  on  actions  provided  for  under 
Objective 2, in particular to support ‘the greater use of appropriate administrative data in all 
statistical areas’, some burden reduction can be expected. 

Impact on EU budget & human resource (HR) costs  (performance 5/30, direction -1): This 
option  requires  stable  EU  investment  (see  Annex  5)  and  an  increase  in  funds  to  cover  HR 
costs.  Considering  the  cost  of  managing  two  programmes,  some  internal  resources  would 
need  to  be  shifted  from  statistical  production  and  modernisation  projects  to  programme 
management. 

7.  HOW DO THE OPTIONS COMPARE? 
7.1  Multi-criteria analysis25 

Table 4 shows the results of the multi-criteria analysis prepared for this impact assessment. 
The criteria used are the main types of impact for the stakeholder groups identified in Section 
6.1.1:  timeliness,  relevance  and  harmonisation  for  users,  burden  for  respondents  and  costs 
and  use  of  shared  infrastructure  for  producers.  The  impact  on  the  EU  budget  and  costs  for 

25 See Annex 4 for an explanation of the analytical model used in the multi-criteria analysis. 

31 

 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                            
human  resources  is  another  important  criterion,  which  is  linked  to  the  other  criteria  since 
modernisation activities and the use of new data sources will require initial investments. 

In  the  multi-criteria  analysis,  the  levels  of  impact  (=  performance)  of  the  criteria  for  each 
policy  options  and  the  direction  of  the  impact  (positive,  neutral,  negative)  as  described  in 
section  6.3  was  then  multiplied  by  the  relative  weight  of  each  criterion.  The  weights  have 
been applied under the assumption that not all criteria are equally important when assessing 
the overall impacts of the policy options. Since the first two criteria (timeliness,  relevance) 
are  considered  to  be  of  highest  importance  to  users    and  the  third  criterion  (burden)  is  the 
most important for respondents, an equal relative weight of 0,20 has been assigned to them. 
The criterion harmonisation is important to users but not to the same level as timeliness and 
relevance,  it  has  therefore  received  the  weight  of  0,10.  The  other  three  criteria,  which 
primarily concern the production of statistics and not the users or respondents, have also been 
ranked lower, with an equal relative weight of 0.10 each.  

After  the  weighted  performance  of  each  criterion  as  the  product  of  its  performance,  weight 
and  direction  has  been  calculated,  the  ranked  weight  for  each  criterion  was  obtained  by 
multiplying a policy option's ascending rank (from 1 to 4) in the weighted performance by the 
weight of the respective criterion. The final scores shown in table 4 were then calculated as 
the sums of the ranked weights obtained for each criterion. 

The  final  scores  of  the  policy  options  following  the  multi-criteria  analysis  lead  to  the 
following ranking of the policy options: 

  Score 3.7: Option 2c (preferred option) 
  Score 2.3: Option 2b 
  Score 1.7: Option 1 
  Score 1.6: Option 3 

As a result, Option 2c is the preferred policy option as it emerges as the most beneficial 
choice across all criteria. 

32 

 
 
 
 
  
 
 
Table 4: Results of the multi-criteria analysis 

7.2  Financial envelope of the extension of the ESP to 2018-2020 

Based  on  the  analysis  of  the  best  ways  and  tools  to  achieve  results  and  the  comparison  of 
options,  the  intended  budget  for  the  preferred  option  to  extend  the  European  statistical 
programme for 2018-2020 is EUR 279.9 million (Option 2c, see Annex 5). This option does 
not cover any sub-delegated budget. Increasing the budget for statistics at EU level to achieve 
the  above-mentioned  new  orientations  could  bring  significant  added  value  and  results, 
without calling into question the general equilibrium of the EU budget. 

33 

Input matrix12a2b2c3CriteriaWeightDirectionPerformanceDirectionPerformanceDirectionPerformanceDirectionPerformanceDirectionPerformanceIncreased timeliness0,20115112123110Increased relevance0,20-1101812415Reduced burden0,20151712017Increased harmonisation0,10115115125115Reduced costs for the ESS0,101511011515Level of shared infrastructure0,1015110120110Impact on EU budget & HR costs0,1015-12-115-15Ranking matrixCriteria12a2b2c312a2b2c3Increased timeliness3,02,44,62,00,60,40,80,2Increased relevance-2,01,64,81,00,20,60,80,4Reduced burden 1,01,44,01,40,20,40,80,4Increased harmonisation1,51,52,51,50,10,10,40,1Reduced costs for the ESS0,51,01,50,50,10,30,40,1Level of shared infrastructure0,51,02,01,00,10,20,40,2Impact on EU budget & HR costs0,5-0,2-1,5-0,50,40,30,10,212a2b2c31,72,33,71,6Option 1: "No change" policy: same ESP extended for 3 yearsOption 2: Extension of the current ESP for 3 years with adaptations:Sub-option 2a: Amendments and reduced budgetSub-option 2b: Amendments and same budgetSub-option 2c: Amendments and higher budgetOption 3: Several statistical programmesFinal ScoresPolicy OptionsWeighted performanceRanked weight 
 
 
 
 
 
Currently,  the  ESP  budget  (approximately  EUR 60 million  each  year  for  the  European 
statistical programme) is limited in size compared with the total EU budget. In light of this, 
an appropriate but reasonable increase in the operational budget would still remain within the 
limits of existing overall budget constraints at European level. It would nevertheless enable 
the  launch  of  large-scale  projects  and  produce  structural  leverage  effects  and  economies  of 
scale for statistical systems across Member States. 

The operational appropriations will be used for procurement (in particular for statistical and 
IT-related  services),  grants  (in  particular  to  contribute  to  developments  and  common 
modernisation  projects  under  the  ESS)  and  actions  with  international  organisations  when 
appropriate. 

This proposal is complementary to other EU activities and programmes and does not exclude 
that Eurostat could manage sub-delegated and co-delegated credits. 

8.  HOW WOULD ACTUAL IMPACTS BE MONITORED AND EVALUATED? 

8.1  Current monitoring 

8.1.1  ESP and annual work programme 

The European statistical programme 2013-2017 sets: 

  1 general objective and 4 specific objectives; 

  14 priority areas with their detailed objectives (23 in total) — each priority area is 

associated to a specific objective; and 

  several indicators for each detailed objective (114 in total). 

In  each  annual  work  programme  implementing  the  multiannual  programme,  all  activities 
(processes  and  projects)  and  their  outputs  are  associated  to  one  detailed  objective  of  the 
European statistical programme. 

8.1.2  Twice-yearly monitoring 

Activities under the annual work programmes — and their outputs — are monitored twice a 
year: in June-July and December-January, Eurostat’s heads of unit are asked to report on each 
activity/output under their responsibility. The grades are the following: 

o  Achieved/completed 

o  On target 

o  Emerging difficulties 

o  Serious difficulties 

o  Revised/abandoned 

For the last three grades, heads of unit are asked to provide an explanation. The results of this 
twice-yearly monitoring are presented to the Eurostat Directors’ Meeting (the percentage of 
the  grades  plus  the  list  of  activities/outputs  that  received  one  of  the  last  three  grades,  with 
explanations). They are also used as input for one of the key performance indicators. Given 
that  the  activities  are  associated  to  the  detailed  objectives,  which  are  related  to  the  priority 
areas and specific objectives, the results of this twice-yearly monitoring give an indication of 
the ESP implementation at various levels of detail (23 detailed objectives, 14 priority areas or 
4 specific objectives). 

34 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
8.1.3  Key performance indicators (KPIs) 

The  following  key  performance  indicators  are  set  out  in  the  programme  statement  and 
management plans, and reported in annual activity reports: 

1.  Percentage of users that rate as ‘Very good’ or ‘Good’ the overall quality of data 
and services provided by Eurostat (source: annual user satisfaction survey carried 
out by Eurostat). 

2.  Percentage  of  users  that  rate  as  ‘Very  good’  or  ‘Good’  the  overall  quality  of 
European  statistics  (source:  annual  user  satisfaction  survey  carried  out  by 
Eurostat).26 

3.  Number  of  data  extractions  (in  millions)  made  by  external  users  from  Eurostat 
public databases via the Eurostat website (source: monitoring reports on Eurostat 
electronic dissemination). 

4.  Length  of  the  time  series  of  a  sample  of  statistics  (Euro-Indicators  —  active 

series (source: Eurostat database)). 

5.  Percentage of users that rate as ‘Very good’ or ‘Good’ the timeliness of European 
statistics for their purposes (source: annual user satisfaction survey carried out by 
Eurostat).27 

6.  Timeliness of a sample of statistics: average number of days in advance (positive) 
or late (negative), in comparison with the legal target. The sample is taken from 
the  PEEIs  –  principal  European  economic  indicators  –  (source:  Eurostat  annual 
Status  Report  on  information  requirements  in  EMU  submitted  to  the  Economic 
and Financial Committee) plus EU external trade (source: Eurostat).28   

7.  Percentage  of  users  that  rate  as  ‘Very  good’  or  ‘Good’  the  comparability  of 
European statistics among regions and countries (source: annual user satisfaction 
survey carried out by Eurostat). 

8.  Degree of achievement of each specific objective measured as a percentage of the 
twice-yearly 

the  activities/outputs  related 

it  (source: 

to 

achievement  of 
monitoring). 

8.1.4  ESP 2013-2017 intermediate evaluation 

Article 15 of the ESP Regulation requires the undertaking of an intermediate evaluation and 
presentation  of  a  report  on  the  programme.  Article  15  states  ‘The  Commission  shall,  after 
consulting  the  ESSC  [European  Statistical  System  Committee],  submit  an  intermediate 
progress report on the implementation of the programme to the European Parliament and to 
the  Council  by  30  June  2015’.  The  intermediate  progress  report  was  considered  as  an 
evaluation of the programme to be carried out following the Commission’s standards. In line 
with  new  Commission  evaluation  guidelines,  the  intermediate  evaluation  covered  five 
evaluation criteria: effectiveness, relevance, efficiency, EU added value, and coherence. 

26 

In 2014, users’ satisfaction with the data and services provided by Eurostat (KPI 1) was higher than the 
users’ satisfaction with data alone (KPI 2). This can be interpreted as a sign that the services provided by 
Eurostat (dissemination tools, user supports, etc.) increase the value of bare data. 

27   For a definition of ‘timeliness’, see Section 8.2. 
28   See more in Section 8.2. 

35 

 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                            
The  scope  of  the  evaluation  was  limited  to  the  execution  of  the  European  statistical 
programme in 2013 and 2014. Relevant progress accomplished in 2015 was also highlighted 
where  appropriate.  Eurostat’s  central  evaluation  team  conducted  the  evaluation  internally, 
with the collaboration of a steering group including members from all Eurostat directorates, 
using all available sources of information so as to minimise the burden for production units. 

Together  with  the  published  final  report,  Eurostat  prepared  a  background  document 
containing the collected evidence to support the report’s findings and which also contained a 
chapter on extending the ESP to 2020. The background document was made available to the 
Commission’s  Directorates-General  during  the  interservice  consultation  on  the  report.  The 
European  Statistical  System  Committee  and  the  European  Statistical  Advisory  Committee 
were also both consulted on the report. 

8.1.5  ESP final evaluation 

The  ESP  final  evaluation  is  provided  for  in  Article  15  of  the  ESP  Regulation,  which  states 
that  ‘By  31  December  2018,  the  Commission  shall,  after  consulting  the  ESSC  and  the 
European  Statistical  Advisory  Committee,  submit  a  final  evaluation  report  on  the 
implementation  of  the  programme  to  the  European  Parliament  and  to  the  Council.’  As  the 
proposal  will  extend  the  current  ESP  for  the  period  2018-2020,  it  is  proposed  that  a 
comprehensive  final  evaluation  covering  the  entire  programme  period  will  be  submitted  by 
31  December  2021.  The  final  evaluation  report  will  again  include  the  same  five 
implementation  criteria  as  the  intermediate  evaluation  of  the  ESP:  effectiveness,  relevance, 
efficiency, EU added value, and coherence. 

However, some significant differences with the intermediate evaluation will arise because of 
the necessity to fully comply with the Commission’s new evaluation guidelines. Among other 
requirements,  a  12-week  public  consultation  will  have  to  be  organised  for  the  report  and  a 
Staff Working Document, in a way similar to the background document for the intermediate 
evaluation,  will  have  to  be  prepared  and  also  submitted  to  interservice  consultation  and 
published. 

Based on the experience of the mid-term evaluation, Eurostat has also started associating the 
activities of the annual work programme with the 114 indicators set out in the ESP. This will 
have  the  double  advantage  of  facilitating  future  evaluations  and  of  enabling  automatic 
monitoring each year if all ESP indicators are being fulfilled. 

8.2 

Improving the monitoring 

8.2.1  Time coverage 

The  indicator  currently  used  for  measuring  the  time  coverage  (i.e.  KPI  n.  4  "Length  of  the 
time series") is very precise but the sample is too small and rigid (i.e. in case of breaks in the 
time series it does not take into account the existence of substitute/proxy series for replacing 
those that have been "broken").  Eurostat is planning to replace this indicator with a new one 
that will give a less precise measure of actual length of single time series but will cover all 
available public data. 

8.2.2  Timeliness and punctuality 

Punctuality refers to the delay between the date of the release of the data and the target date, 
i.e.  the  date  by  which  the  data  should  have  been  delivered  (as  agreed  for  delivery  or 
announced  in  an  official  release  calendar,  laid  down  by  Regulations  or  previously  agreed 
among  partners).    For  instance,  the  KPI  n.6  measures  it  as  average  number  of  days  of 

36 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
advance  (positive)  or  delay  (negative)  of  the  data  delivery  date  in  comparison  to  the  legal 
target. 

Timeliness (or time lag) refers to the period between the availability of the information and 
the event or phenomenon it describes. It answers the question: "how old are the statistics that 
are  available  today?"  It  is  a  relative  measure  that  depends  on  the  date  used  as  "today".  
Example:  if a given monthly statistical indicator is issued the 25th of each following month 
(e.g. the statistical indicator about January is issued the 25th of February).  Therefore: 

o  The  25th  of  each  month,  the  timeliness  of  the  statistical  indictor  is  -25  days 

(i.e. it provides a "picture" that is 25 days old). 

o  Starting from the 26th day, the timeliness of the statistical indictor decreases 
each day with one day and the 24th of next month the timeliness is -55 days (if 
the previous month has 31 days). 

Therefore, the graph of the timeliness of a given periodic statistical indictor  is  saw-shaped, 
with the maximums of timeliness in correspondence of the release dates and the minimums 
on the day before the release date (see Figure 3).  

Figure 3: Timeliness/time lag of a dummy periodic statistical indicator 

Because of that, the calculation of a timeliness indicator is not easy.  However, Eurostat will 
analyse  the  possibility  of  defining  such  an  indicator  and  developing  an  IT  routine  for 
calculating  it  on  the  basis  of  the  data  available  in  Eurostat  public  database.    Elements  of 
analysis: 

o  There  should  be  one  timeliness  indicator  for  each  main  statistics'  frequency 

(e.g. monthly, quarterly and yearly). 

o  The timeliness will be measured on a sample of statistical indicators. 

o  The  timeliness  should  be  measured  every  day  for  each  chosen  statistical 
indicator  in  order  to  calculate  the  average  timeliness  of  all  the  chosen 
statistical indicators over a given period of time. 

37 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
9. 

ANNEXES 

Annex 1 
assessment report and the related initiative 

Procedural  information  on  the  process  to  prepare  the  impact 

Basic information 

Name  of  the  initiative:  Proposal  for  a  Regulation  amending  Regulation  No  99/2013  on  the 
European statistical programme 2013-2017 

Lead DG: Eurostat 

Agenda Planning number: 2014/ESTAT/003  

Organisation and timing 

The interdepartmental group on the coordination of statistics (Ares - estat.a.3(2013)3303324) 
was used as the Impact Assessment Steering Group for this proposal. This group, created in 
2013, is led by Eurostat and gathers all DGs interested in statistics. For the specific work on 
the  impact  assessment,  DGs  were  invited  to  nominate  representatives  by  a  note  Ref. 
Ares(2015)1231228 of 20/03/2015.  

The IASG met 3 times: 

  On  18  May  2015  to  discuss  the  roadmap  and  options,  the  results  of  the  mid-term 
evaluation of the ESP 2013-2017 and the consultation strategy, with documents sent 
on  11/05/15.  DG  AGRI,  CLIMA,  CNECT,  DEVCO,  DIGIT,  EAC,  ECFIN,  ECHO, 
EMPL,  ENER,  ESTAT,  GROW,  JRC,  HOME,  MARE,  MOVE,  NEAR,  RTD, 
SANTE, SG and TAXUD took part in the meeting. Ref. minutes: Ares(2016)604491. 
  On 27 November 2015 to discuss the draft impact assessment report and the results of 
the  consultations,  with  documents  sent  on  20/11/15.  DG  CNECT,  DIGIT,  EAC, 
ECFIN, EMPL, ENER, ESTAT, ENV, GROW, JUST, JRC, MARE, MOVE, NEAR, 
RTD  and  SG  took  part  in  the  meeting.  DG  BUDG  sent  written  comments.  Ref. 
minutes: Ares(2016)604585. 

  On  22  January  2016,  to  discuss  the  final  draft  impact  assessment  report,  with 
documents sent for consultation on 15/01/2016. DG BUDG, CLIMA, DEVCO, EAC, 
ECFIN, EMPL, ENER, ENV, ESTAT, GROW, JRC, MOVE, NEAR, REGIO, RTD, 
SANTE and SG took part in the meeting. Ref. minutes: Ares(2016)688772. 

In  the  interim,  written  communication  was  conducted  on  documents  for  the  open  public 
consultation  (launched  on  02/07/2015  Ref.  Ares(2015)2784049).  The  Inception  Impact 
Assessment was revised including SG comments of 08/06/2015 and is now published since 
07/10/15 on http://ec.europa.eu/smart-regulation/roadmaps/docs/2014_estat_003_esp_en.pdf.  

Following the 3rd meeting of the IASG, a revised version of the Impact Assessment Report 
was submitted to the Regulatory Scrutiny Board on 17 February 2016. 

38 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Regulatory Scrutiny Board (RSB) 

The RSB examined the  Impact Assessment Report for Proposal for a Regulation amending 
Regulation No 99/2013 on the European statistical programme 2013-2017 on 16 March and 
gave its positive opinion on the Report on 18 March 2016, while recommending to improve 
the  Report  with  regard  to  the  policy  options,  methodology/assessment  criteria,  budgetary 
impacts, administrative burden, and EU value added. 

These led to the following main changes compared to the first draft:  

Board recommendations 

Subsequent modifications 

Policy options: The report should clarify and 
justify the negative and positive priorities 
made in the policy options and better explain 
how Eurostat assesses timeliness and 
relevance in that context. 

The policy options and the priorities made, as 
well as the assessment of timeliness and 
relevance, have been elaborated in sections 5 
and 6.3. Further information on continuous 
priority-setting and the cost-merit analysis of 
statistical products has been added in sections 
2.2.3 and 5.2.2. 

Methodology/assessment criteria: The 
methodology applied for the multi-criteria 
analysis should be better explained and 
justified. 

The explanation of the methodology used in 
the multi-criteria analysis, including the 
weighting of the criteria, has been improved 
in sections 6.3 and 7.1. 

Budgetary impacts: The report should 
elaborate further on the financial implications 
of various policy choices, including for 
Member States. 

Administrative burden: Respondent burden 
should feature more prominently in the 
analysis, including with more concrete 
estimates of current and envisaged levels of 
administrative burdens. 

EU value added: The report should better 
justify the EU value added of the programme 
for European statistics. 

Evidence and sources 

More details have been provided on the 
budgetary implications of the different policy 
options and the impact on Member States in 
section 6.3. The detailed breakdowns are now 
listed in a new Annex 5. 

More information on the overall 
administrative burden from statistics and 
mitigation measures by the European 
statistical system has been provided in 
section 2.2.3 while clarifications on the 
expected burden (reductions) under the 
various policy options have been provided in 
section 6.3. 

The EU value added of European statistics 
has been better demonstrated in section 3.2.  

The  document  is  mainly  based  on  qualitative  information.  It  contains  references  to  various 
sources  (OECD  report  or  ESGAB  report).  There  is  no  specific  issue  to  be  raised  about  the 
reliability of the information. 

39 

 
 
 
 
 
 
External expertise 

This impact assessment has been conducted internally within Eurostat, and includes extensive 
consultations  of  the  European  Statistical  System  Directors  groups,  which  are  Commission 
experts  groups.  Other  sources  such  as  previous  internal,  Commission  or  NSI  surveys  and 
external studies of relevance to the impact assessment are referenced where appropriate.  

40 

 
 
 
Annex 2 

Stakeholder consultation  

Introduction 

The  Consultation  Strategy  on  the  proposal  for  an  extension  of  the  European  statistical 
programme  2013-2017  has  been  elaborated  at  an  early  stage  with  the  view  to  collect  input 
and views from as many stakeholders as possible. A number of important stakeholders were 
already  consulted  in  the  impact  assessment  that  was  conducted  for  the  programme  2013-
2017.  Moreover,  Eurostat  has  a  regular  dialogue  with  its  main  stakeholders,  in  particular 
through annual hearings with Commission DGs, frequent meetings with producers (national 
statistical institutes) at both technical and senior management levels, and with the European 
Statistical  Advisory  Committee  (ESAC)  which  represents  users  and  respondents.  In  this 
context,  and  based  on  the  intense  consultation  with  various  stakeholder  categories  which 
started already in 2014, Eurostat proposed a comprehensive approach to the consultation with 
stakeholders  in  the  framework  of  the  impact  assessment.  This  Consultation  Strategy  was 
discussed in the Impact Assessment Steering Group which consists of the representatives of 
the Commission DGs. 

Objectives of the consultation 

Within the framework of the Consultation Strategy, clear objectives have been set. Eurostat, 
the statistical authority of the European Union, is currently reviewing the framework for the 
production of statistical data which helps the EU to make the best policies for its citizens, and 
helps  to  understand  and  compare  the  situation  in  the  different  EU  Member  States.  The 
production of European statistics is challenged by a changing environment characterised by  

  New data needs and expectations from users 
 
Innovation in methodology and information technologies 
  Availability of new data sources (such as administrative data) 
  Pressure on resources of national administrations (cost of statistical operations) 
 

Increasing concern for response burden. 

Therefore, Eurostat  launched  a  series  of  targeted  consultations  and  a  public  consultation  so 
that it ensures that all relevant parties have an opportunity to express their opinions. 

Taking  into account that the current European statistical programme has  been  elaborated in 
2010-2011,  it  is  therefore  important  to  get  contributions  from  stakeholders  to  identify  the 
changes  that  have  occurred  in  the  meantime  and  need  to  be  taken  into  account  for  the 
extension of the programme to the years 2018-2020.  

This  covers  political,  economic  or  social  changes  as  well  as  changes  in  the  field  of 
technologies,  statistics  and  methodologies.  It  is  then  important  to  assess,  in  particular  from 
the users point of view, what should be the priorities for European official statistics until 
2020. Finally, it is useful to get feedback on the impact of suggested actions on the users, 
producers  of  statistics  and  on  respondents  (in  particular  businesses)  and  assess  which 

41 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
difficulties  will  need  to  be  overcome  when  implementing  these  actions.  The  consultations 
focused also on impact of the various options considered for the extension of the European 
statistical programme.  

The Consultation Strategy identified and mapped stakeholders' categories and groups so that 
all  of  them  are  sufficiently  covered.  It  included  producers  of  European  statistics  (national 
statistical  institutes  and  other  national  authorities);  Survey  respondents  (businesses  and 
households), and users of European statistics. 

The  following  two  groups  have  also  been  distinguished:  the  institutional  users  include 
national  and  European  organizations,  namely:  national  governments,  European  Parliament 
and  the  Council,  European  Economic  and  Social  Committee,  European  Central  Bank, 
national  central  banks,  Committee  of  the  Regions,  European  Statistical  System  Committee, 
European  trade  Union  Confederation,  Confederation  of  European  Business,  and  European 
Data Protection Supervisor. 

Non-institutional  users,  individuals  belonging  or  not  to  institutions,  include  the  following 
groups, according to their interest on statistics:   

1.  Users with a general interest 
  Journalists and media 
  Citizens 
  Students (by level of education, or age) and teachers (by level of education) 

2.  Users with a specific interest 
  Decision makers 
  Methodologists 
  Marketing analysts 
  Users interested in a particular domain/field  

3.  Users with a research interest 
  Scientific community – professors and researchers  universities and research 

institutions  

  Consultants and researchers in Governmental Agencies and private sector 
  Experts in a specific field  

42 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The stakeholders' categories have been matched with the types defined in the minimum 
standards. They are reflected in the table below: 

Have a stated interest in the 
policy 

Affected by the policy  Will have to 

implement the policy 
Their costs may 
increase if more 
statistics are to be 
collected; they would 
benefit from the use of 
new sources and 
implementation of new 
methods of production 

Burden may increase if 
more statistics are 
collected.  
Burden may decrease 
if new sources are 
used 
Burden may increase if 
more statistics are 
collected.  
Burden may decrease 
if new sources are 
used 

Have an interest in the scope of 
European statistics, as primary 
users for policy making, and 
have an interest in limiting the 
burden on businesses 
Have an interest in the scope of 
European statistics, and 
dissemination 
Have an interest in the scope of 
European statistics, and 
dissemination 
Have an interest in the scope of 
European statistics, and 
dissemination 

Producers 
(NSIs and 
ONAs) 

Respondents  
businesses 

Respondents 
households 

Users: 
institutional 

Users with a 
general 
interest 
Users with a 
specific 
interest 
Users with a 
research 
interest 

Consultations carried out  

Intense  consultation  with  various  stakeholders'  categories  started  already  in  2014  and 
continued through 2015. It covered the following categories: 

43 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Conference of European statistics stakeholders (users and stakeholders)  

Eurostat  organised  workshops  on  the  European  statistical  programme  in  the  context  of  the 
conference  of  European  statistics  stakeholders  in  Rome  on  25  November  2014.  The 
workshops used the "World Café" approach, which is the creative process used to facilitate 
collaborative discussion and create a network of viewpoints and opinions.  

The  workshops  gathered  almost  100  users,  researchers,  methodologists  and  producers  of 
statistics  and  members  of  the  European  Statistics  Advisory  Committee  (ESAC)  which  is 
composed of users and respondents, including businesses, statistical societies, academics and 
various  other  stakeholders.  The  participants  were  actively  involved  in  the  different  round 
tables  and  the  final  result  included  a  wealth  of  input  from  the  users/methodologists  of 
statistics. 

The  discussion  focused  on  three  main  questions:  What  has  changed  in  the  environment  of 
statistics  since  2010?  How  can  we  measure  these  changes?  What  could  be  the  concrete 
actions? What would be the impact of suggested actions? 

Based  on  the  results  of  the  Conference,  discussions  among  participants  continued  online 
through the "CROS portal", an interactive platform managed by Eurostat.  

ESAC was also consulted beginning of July of 2015 on the needs (based on the results of the 
Conference of European statistics stakeholders) and on the policy options.  

Beside  the  consultations  mentioned  above,  Eurostat  consults  the  users  via  the  User 
satisfaction survey which is conducted annually. 

Consultation of the Commission DGs 

Eurostat  conducted  a  written  consultation  of  the  Commission  DGs  which  was  launched  on 
the 20th March 2015. The consultation documents included the roadmap on the extension of 
ESP  2013-2017  and  possible  policy  options  as  well  as  other  questions  related  to  the 
assessment of the DGs  needs in a longer term  perspective. The note sent to the DGs asked 
their comments and input on 

  The roadmap and policy options, particularly from a budgetary perspective;  
  Stable  needs  and  their  impact:  asking  which  current  statistical  activities  of  the 
European  statistical  programme  will  continue  to  be  most  pertinent  for  the  relevant 
DGs policy needs during the period of 2018-2020. 

  New needs: asking to indicate, in priority order, what the needs are for new statistics 
or  improvements  for  the  period  2018-2020,  in  particular  in  relation  to  the  10 
priorities defined by the Commission in the Political guidelines for the Commission 
2015-2020.  

  Areas  of  less  importance:  asking  to  inform  Eurostat  about  the  areas  of  less 
importance in the redefined political agenda and/or which could be simplified in the 

44 

 
 
 
 
light of constraints on resources both at EU and national levels and in order to limit 
the burden of respondents, in particular business. 

  Link  with  other  programmes:  asking  to  indicate  if  the  DG  manages  programmes 
with  a  statistical  component  and  if  it  considers  in  the coming  years  to  sub-delegate 
part of it to Eurostat.  

Furthermore,  Eurostat  has  been  organising  bilateral  meetings  at  senior  management  level 
between Eurostat and the DGs during the period of June-September 2015 which were aimed 
at identifying priorities and the needs of each Commission DG. 

User's  expectations  regarding  the  priority  of  elements  in  the  quality  vector  of  statistics 
(relevance,  accuracy,  timeliness,  comparability  etc.)  have  been  addressed  in  relation  to  its 
utilization for policy making purposes, as shown below. 

Consultation of producers / Consultation with national statistical institutes 

Taking into account new challenges posed for European statistics and changing environment 
as  well  as  the  fact  that  national  statistical  institutes  of  the  Member  States  are  important 
players in the production of European Statistics, Eurostat worked very closely with the NSIs 
to elaborate the "Vision 2020 for the European Statistical System" in 2014. This resulted in a 
series  of  new  initiatives  for  improving  statistical  production.  These  outcomes  and  concrete 
priorities  were  extensively  discussed  with  the  NSIs  of  the  Member  States  on  the  technical 
levels  (working  groups  as  well  as  on  more  strategic  levels  in  the  Directors  groups  and 
European Statistical System Committee (ESSC)) during the year 2014.  
Eurostat  also  launched  targeted  consultations  of  producers  which  continued  in  2015.  The 
latter addressed two dimensions: 

  Analysis  of  the  impact  of  the  new  needs  for  statistics    by  each  "Directors  Group" 
representing  national  statistical  institutes  and  other  national  authorities  in  a  specific 

45 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
statistical  field,  through  meetings  and/or  specific  written  consultations  (June-July 
2015). 

  Opinion of the European Statistical System Committee on the Road map and policy 

options for the Extension of the Statistical programme (September 2015). 

A public consultation 

A public consultation was launched on 'Your Voice in Europe': http://ec.europa.eu/yourvoice/ 
on 23 July 2015 and lasted up until 15 October 2015. Eurostat ensured adequate awareness-
raising publicity and adapted its communication channels. The call for the consultation was 
on the home page of Eurostat and also communicated to the Member States so that national 
statistical institutes could publicise via their websites. 

The public consultation on the extension of the European statistical programme 2013-2017 to 
2018-2020 focused on 

  The changes in the environment that could affect the priorities of the European 

Statistical programme 2018-2020, and  

  The impact of various options considered for the extension of the programme. 

Anyone with an interest in the topic was thus invited to express their views on the questions 
identified in the call for consultation as well as to present their opinions as to what additional 
measures  could  be  appropriate.  Contributions  were  particularly  sought  from  users  of 
European statistics (public and private decision makers, researchers, universities, journalists) 
and  survey  respondents  (in  particular  businesses  and  industry  associations)  and  citizens,  as 
well  as  producers  of  European  statistics  (national  statistical  institutes,  other  national 
authorities) and other statisticians.  

The questionnaire covered a series of general  questions on the identification of respondents 
as  well  as  specific  questions  on  the  level  of  satisfaction  of  stakeholders  with  the  current 
availability  of  European  statistics,  needs,  and  priorities  for  European  official  statistics  until 
2020. Examples of the questions are presented below: 

  To  what  extent  do  you  believe  that  European  statistics  are  generally  important  for 

evidence-based policy making in the EU today? 

  Are you satisfied about the availability of statistical information at EU level for your 
decision  making  process  (evidence-based  policy  making)?  Do  you  think  there  are 
areas where more data is needed? Please indicate. 

  Would  you  accept  a  higher  response  burden  in  order  to  fulfil  these  needs?  Please 

explain. 

  Can you indicate less important statistical fields which could be deleted from the ESP 

 

for the sake of the reduction of the overall budget and burden? 
Is  the  overall  completeness  of  European  statistics  (in  terms  of  e.g.  breakdown 
availability by countries, regions, components, etc.) sufficient? If not, please indicate 
the problems you encounter. 

46 

 
 
 
 
  Do you consider timeliness of statistical information adequate to your needs? If not, 

please explain. 

  Are  you  satisfied  with  the  way  you  access  Eurostat  databases  and/or  publications?  

What could be improved? 

  Does  the  current  European  Statistical  Programme  2013-2017  sufficiently  cover  new 
recently  emerged  social  environmental  and  economic  phenomena  (policies)?  If  not, 
please, justify your opinion. 

  Which  changes  in  the  field  of  technologies,  statistics  and  methodologies  should  be 

taken into account in the extension of the programme for the years 2018-2020? 

  Subsidiarity  and  the  EU  dimension:  Do  you  think  the  Roadmap  provides  a  clear 
description of the issues to be taken into account when verifying compliance with the 
subsidiarity principle? If not, which aspects and how it should be addressed in the IA? 

Under the chapter “Impact of the different options” several options considered by Eurostat for 
the  extension  of  the  programme  to  2018-2020  were  presented  for  consultation  as  well. 
Eurostat  was  seeking  feedback  of  the  impact  of  these  options  on  the  users,  producers  of 
statistics and on respondents (in particular businesses), and citizens at large. The respondents 
were asked the following: 

  Which policy option would be the preferred one so that your current needs are taken 

into account? Please justify. 

  What would be the impact of the different policy options? What would be the impact 
of the Options (1, 2, 3) on the fulfilment of users' needs? What would be the impact of 
Options on the burden on respondents, producers, users' needs? 

  Which of the proposed options ensures best possibilities to introduce new production 

methods, technologies and products of European statistics? 

47 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Overview 

Eurostat conducted the consultation based on the General principles and Minimum Standards 
identified by the Commission in the Guidelines on Stakeholder Consultation. 

The  consultation  of  stakeholders  has  been  conducted  following  the  Consultation  Strategy 
which  encompassed  all  relevant  stakeholders  as  well  as  the  public  at  large.  An  overview 
below presents which stakeholders have been consulted on which IA elements: 

Consultation on 
factors of change 

Consultation on 
needs and priorities 

Consultation on 
options 

Producers (NSIs and 
ONAs) 

ESSC 
meeting 
November  2014  on 
the ESP and the ESS 
Vision 2020; 

Directors 
groups/ESSC – July 
2015 

ESSC – September 
2015 

Users/respondents- 
ESAC 

September 2015 

ESAC conference in 
November 2014, 
meeting in October  
2015 

ESAC  conference  in 
November 
  2014, 
meetings  in  October 
written 
2015, 
the 
consultation 
in 
portal 
cross 
2014- 
November 
January 2015 

Commission DGs, 

Written consultation 
in March 2015, 
hearings, bilateral 
meetings 2014-2015 

Written consultation 
in March 2015, 
hearings, bilateral 
meetings 2014-2015 

Written consultation 
in March, hearings, 
bilateral meetings 
2015 

Public consultation  

In the period between 
13 July 2015 and 15 
October 2015 

In the period between 
13 July 2015 and 15 
October 2015 

In the period between 
13 July 2015 and 15 
October 2015 

Inter-service Group 

Meeting in March 
2015 

Different  methods  and  tools  have  been  used  to  ensure  accessibility  and  ensure  that  all 
relevant  stakeholders  groups  mapped  in  the  Strategy  have  the  possibility  to  respond.  The 
consultations  have  been  differentiated  between  the  targeted  and  general  ones  Written 

48 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
requests, bilateral meetings, conferences as well as seminars have been used to find out the 
opinions  as  well  as  the  views  on  the  Eurostat  initiative  to  review  the  framework  for  the 
production of European statistics. Consultation documents were available on Eurostat website 
and  also  sent  to  the  national  statistical  institutes  of  the  Member  States  so  that  they  could 
promote the consultation process within their respective countries. 

Different time periods relevant for the consultations have been set so that the views as well as 
opinions of stakeholders could be duly taken into account and well considered. Consultations 
have been conducted at different levels, i.e. technical as well as strategic to ensure coherence 
and consistency. 

The  content  of  the  consultation  and  the  questions  were  formulated  in  a  clear  and 
understandable  way.  Acknowledgment  of  stakeholders'  feedback  has  been  submitted  to  all 
stakeholders who responded to the public consultation. 

Outcome of the consultations 

Conference of European statistics stakeholders (consultation of users and respondents)  

The users have been consulted on the following aspects: 

  Factors of change 
  Needs and priorities. 

On  the  drivers  of  change,  users  indicated  the  ones  relatively  common  to  the  9  areas  of  the 
current  European  Statistical  Programme  (ESP)  2013-2017.  These  are  mainly  the  economic 
and  social  crisis,  globalisation,  a  more  heterogeneous  Europe  between  and  within  Member 
States,  the  request  for  statistics  describing  distribution  rather  than  averages  and  the 
availability of new data sources.  

As for the needs and priorities up to 2020, there were proposals for improvements of statistics 
in  specific  areas  such  as:  migration  (migration  flows  using  combined  data  sources  from 
different countries), productivity, value chains (better understanding of domestic and global 
value adding process), social indicators, in particular poverty, inequality, elderly people. The 
Conference  urged  the  NSIs  to  continue  working  on  technical,  legal  and  consensual  issues 
which is a prerequisite for the exchange of micro data within the European statistical family. 

The  discussions  were  not  limited  to  a  wish  list.  Proposals  were  also  made  on  how  to  work 
differently,  and  how  to  make  the  best  use  of  new  sources  and  technologies.  The  following 
could be mentioned as examples: integration of social variables in the accounting framework, 
recognising  geospatial  information  as  a  dimension  that  needs  to  be  integrated  with  many 
statistical areas and can appear in the programme in a matrix way. In this context, it has been 
noted that the INSPIRE infrastructure should be better used, the potential of big data should 

49 

 
 
 
 
 
 
be better exploited which would help providing real time data and full coverage, however at 
the same tackling the challenges of quality aspects. 
In  particular,  users  were  concerned  with  the  timeliness  of  social  indicators.  They  indicated 
that new technologies could well serve this purpose so that policy makers and the society at 
large  receive  relevant  statistical  information  in  due  time.  In  their  opinion,  increased 
comparability  of  social  indicators  across  countries  as  well  as  consistency  between  EU  and 
international data should receive proper attention in the Extension of the ESP 2013-2017.  

Suggestions  were  put  forward  to  create  a  new  scheme  of  defining  indicators  and  their 
measurement  so  that  the  wording  of  the  indicators  has  to  be  simple  enough  to  be 
understandable to the respondents in the same way. Also the interpretation of the indicators 
has to be clear in the communication with specific groups. Users stressed the importance of 
measuring indicators in a comparable way.    

Proposals  were  put  forward  in  relation  to  avoid  response  burden.  As  an  example,  it  was 
mentioned  a  need  to  implement  a  more  efficient  data  production  process  which  could  be 
achieved  due  to    greater  coordination  between  accountants,  statisticians  and  regulators  to 
agree a common set of reporting procedures e.g. greater use of electronic invoices. 

European  Statistics  Advisory  Committee  (ESAC)  which  represents  users  and  respondents, 
has  been  consulted  on  continuous  basis.  It  expressed  a  clear  need  for  reducing  burden  on 
respondents, improving timeliness, incorporating new data sources from outside ESS, alerted 
on resources needed for measuring emerging policies.  

ESAC  noted  that  better  information  on  migration  phenomenon  could  help  policymakers  to 
choose  the  right  options  for  handling  migration  and  for  promoting  labour  mobility.  They 
consider  that  migration  statistics  must  be  given  higher  priority  on  all  levels,  be  it  ESS, 
national  or  sub-national.  ESAC  indicated  that  in  the  long  run,  migration  statistics  at  Union 
level has to be more closely and precisely linked to administrative registers. In the opinion of 
ESAC, it is essential and urgent to produce reliable statistics on labour mobility. The key to 
the creation of indicators of labour market integration is longitudinal data and geographical 
breakdown.  

Consultation of the Commission DGs  

The Commission DGs have been consulted on the roadmap and policy options, particularly 
from  a  budgetary  perspective;  stable  needs  and  their  impact;  new  needs  and  priorities; 
areas  of  less  importance  for  their  policy  field;  link  with  other  programmes.  25  DGs 
responded to the questionnaire launched on 20 March 2015.   

As  regards  the  content  of  the  extended  programme,  the  following  observations  could  be 
made: 

  DGs  indicated  that  the  current  statistical  needs  will  not  be  reduced  during  the 
extension  period  of  the  ESP.  Currently  collected  statistical  information  pertinent  to 
their  main  processes  for  policy  developments  and  analyses  will  be  further  required. 

50 

 
 
 
 
Particular  attention  was  given  to  maintaining  the  current  relevant  statistical  work 
streams to produce high quality data. 

  There was also a call for filling in currently existing data gaps and new needs in 
some of the policy areas and/or the need for additional breakdowns by geographical 
regions, etc. In most of the cases new needs are related to the ten priorities defined by 
the Commission in the Political guidelines for the Commission 2015-2020. 

  The  Commission  DGs  didn't  identify  any  areas  of  low  importance  that  could  be 
cut.  Instead,  a  few  cases  referred  to  the  need  of  exploiting  better  new  data  sources, 
like big data, which in the long run will lead to efficiency gains.  

The Commission DGs referred to the challenges in terms of timeliness of data and the need of 
more  detailed  and  timely  statistics  for  a  number  of  policy  areas  so  that  the  policy  makers 
could  benefit  from  it.  Specific  fields  have  been  indicated,  like  social  statistics  (including 
migration,  health,  gender  statistics),  and  business  statistics  (globalisation  factor).    More 
effective,  efficient  and  advanced  methods  (using  more  varied  data  sources, 
like 
administrative data) for the production of European statistics should be aimed at in order  to 
achieve the relevant quality parameters.   

Linked  to  different  Commission  priorities  highlighted  in  the  political  guidelines  of  the 
Commission  such  as  A  New  Boost  for  Jobs,  Growth  and  Investment;  A  Deeper  and  Fairer 
Internal  Market  with  a  Strengthened  Industrial  Base;  A  Deeper  and  Fairer  Economic  and 
Monetary Union, the DGs indicated a number of priorities that would require measurement 
and monitoring indicators in the long run.  

The Commission DGs indicated a number of areas to be addressed within the framework of 
the  ESP  extension.  It  was  noted  that  changes  in  the  design  of  European  energy  markets 
necessitate the need for streamlining energy statistics in order to have timely, comparable and 
sufficiently detailed data in the field of energy policies and striving that statistics respond to 
challenges  arising  from  the  new  energy  market  structure  (decentralised  power  generation 
from  renewable  sources,  demand  response  solutions  at  final  customers,  extension  of  the 
household  final  energy  consumption  statistics  to  other  sectors  of  the  economy  –  industry, 
services, transport, etc).  

The  DGs  reflected  on  the  need  to  harmonise  the  Household  Budget  Survey  and  EU  Social 
and Living Conditions surveys across the EU MSs; to elaborate indicators on tax fraud and 
evasion; to produce more complete data sets on social contributions, notably to improve the 
breakdown of contributions by economic function; to increase statistical capacity of partner 
countries.  They  expressed  a  need  for  a  better  level  of  detail  in  the  breakdown  in  consumer 
price  indices  and  employment  data.  The  DGs  considered  that  it  is  extremely  important  to 
collect data on investment and maintenance of transport infrastructure, on the functioning of 
justice  systems  for  the  annual  EU  Justice  Scoreboard;  on  the  prevalence  of  gender-based 
violence (call of the Council and the EP); on over-education, skill mismatch, changes in the 
wage  structure  and  overall  earnings  inequality;  on  research  and  innovation,  private 
investment and education.  

51 

 
 
 
 
Other  areas  mentioned  by  the  Commission  DGs  include  production  and  dissemination  of 
experimental statistics; more service statistics: more disaggregation; more data which could 
be used to support impact assessments. More complete and timely information is required on 
green  economy  including  circular  economy  package  (quality  of  indicators  on  issues  such 
waste, recycling, secondary raw materials, food waste, repair and reuse, security of supply for 
key  raw  materials  ,  natural  capital  accounting)  .  on  organic  farming.  The  DGs  expressed  a 
need for indicators to monitor the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development; for further 
disaggregation  of  business  R&D  expenditure;  for  improvements  to  be  made  in  the  area  of 
Services and FDI and for more detailed and timely statistics on SMEs. 

Closing  gaps  in  data  on  the  food  supply  chain  and  elaborating  a  full  set  of  28  agri-
environmental  indicators  has  been  also  mentioned  as  areas  to  be  taken  on  board  by  the 
extended ESP.  

As regards the options, the DGs expressed their support in pursuing the extension of the ESP 
2013-2017,  in  particular  stressing  the  ten  priorities  of  the  political  guidelines,  EU2020, 
European  Semester  (preparation  of Annual  Growth  Survey).  It  has  been  also  noted  that  the 
political  context  for  European  statistics  should  remain  a  general  EU  policy  context. 
Therefore,  it  might  call  for  a  harmonisation  of  the  ESP  programming  cycle  as  well.  There 
was  an  overall  agreement  on  the  choice  of  options  as  indicated  in  the  roadmap.  New 
statistical challenges, need for modernisation of the statistical system which could take into 
account  new  digital  environment  and  data  sources,  in  view  of  providing  statistics  on  new 
trends  might  generate  additional  needs  or  resources  and  adaptations  of  the  statistical 
programmes.  Some  observations  have  been  made  on  a  need  for  overall  investment  in  the 
statistical  infrastructure  and  its  modernisation  so  that  new  developments  could  be 
accommodated.  

It  has  also  been  flagged  that  a  smooth  way  to  move  from  the  current  ESP  2013-2017  to  a 
prolonged phase for the years 2018-20 should be ensured. The new phase should be built on 
stable  needs  as  described  by  the  DGs  and  also  include  emerging  new  needs.  With  the 
extension  of  the  programme,  the  overall  aim  of  a  rational  way,  efficiency  gains,  and 
simplification as well as streamlining and prioritisation should become a permanent task.  

Consultation of producers / consultation with national statistical institutes  

The ESSC and Director's groups have been consulted on statistical outputs and priorities of 
the European statistical programme extension. Replies have been received from all members 
of the ESSC and the Directors Groups. 

Overall  there  was  a  wide  support  for  the  extension  of  the  ESP  2013-2017  with  a  view  to 
accommodate  new  needs  for  statistical  production  challenged  by  the  10  Commission 
priorities. 

52 

 
 
 
 
Furthermore, there was a general approach of the NSIs leading to more modern ways, tools 
and methods for the production of the data which could and should result in better timeliness 
and more multi-dimensional characteristics of European statistics. 

The NSIs paid attention to the financial and response burden on all relevant partners involved 
in the production of European statistics, be it businesses, households, citizens, institutions or 
NSIs. Therefore, it has been strongly supported to search for new data sources avoiding direct 
data collections which in many cases are outdated, expensive and not efficient.  

The  ESSC  provided  a  feedback  on  the  impact  of  the  different  policy  options  to  implement 
objective I related to the statistical outputs and objective II on new methods of production of 
European statistics aiming at efficiency gains and quality improvements. 

Some  NSIs  mentioned  that  activities  related  to  implementation  of  the  Vision  2020,  as  they 
depend  on  the  ESS  funding,  would  be  seriously  jeopardized  without  sufficient  budgetary 
support.  The  cost  of  big  data  (IT  infrastructure,  higher  IT,  statistical  and  other  skills)  and 
developments  relating  to  open  data,  were  particularly  highlighted.  Changes,  innovations, 
improvements  require  additional  financial  investments  (methodology,  adaptation  and 
matching of IT tools, training of employees, business trips, etc.).  

Several NSIs underlined the need to re-prioritise current statistical outputs, as new statistics 
need to be developed. Effective re-prioritisation would release resources for innovation and 
new statistical outputs. This would also reflect that NSIs are operating with reduced budgets. 

to  new  challenges  faced  by  European  statistics, 

 Investments in modernizing the ESS and harnessing big data sources for the production were 
deemed  to  be  important  and  necessary.  The  NSIs  considered  that  resources  are  needed  to 
finance  projects  responding 
i.e. 
implementation  of  the  objectives  of  ESS  Vision  2020,  strengthening  of  the  European 
statistical  infrastructure,  new  solutions  for  FRIBS  (the  Framework  Regulation  Integrating 
Business  Statistics),  the  planned  new  round  of  censuses  in  2020,  especially  the  agricultural 
census  (FSS  2020)  or  the  implementation  of  the  statistical  units  in  statistical  registers  and 
statistics.  Furthermore,  development  projects  will  need  highly  skilled  expertise,  from  the 
organisation (i.e. a re-allocation of staff) and/or through external recruitment. 

Several  NSIs  underlined  that,  as  regards  the  European  statistical  infrastructure,  the  most 
important question is how to implement such a solution into various individual sophisticated 
national  systems.  The  issue  of  grants  for  small  countries  was  raised.  For  a  small  NSI  the 
distribution  of  funding  and  more  effective  utilization  of  funding  are  of  greater  importance 
than an increase in the total budget, unless this increase is a very significant one allowing for 
a different approach to EU projects altogether. 

The  NSIs  indicated  that  the  development  of  timely  social  indicators,  including  advanced 
techniques  for  now-casting  and  flash  estimates  might  be  very  ambitious.  Nevertheless,  the 
use of now-cast and flash estimates is quite useful. Therefore, it was emphasized that quality 
requirements have to be respected. 

53 

 
 
 
 
The  NSIs  agreed  that  the  fact  that  the  Lisbon  Treaty  has  called  for  better  regulation,  a 
streamlining of the legislation related to the pillar of business statistics should be pursued as 
far  as  possible  with  due  consideration  for  the  limitations  of  the  resources  available  to 
producers and the overall burdens on respondents, while ensuring that the scope of statistics 
continues  to  meet  users'  needs  and  the  overall  quality  of  the  statistics  for  policy-making  is 
maintained. This is also in line with the current EU Commission initiatives on strengthening 
the Regulatory Scrutiny and the Regulatory Fitness (REFIT) of EU Regulations.  

The NSIs supported the continuity needed to implement the projects at EU level which can 
maximise  EU  added  value.  The  EuroGroups  register,  the  SIngle  Market  StatTATistics 
(SIMSTAT)  project,  and  the  census  hub  are  just  some  examples  of  projects  that  have 
benefited from increased collaboration between Eurostat and the national statistical institutes, 
made  possible  through  collaborative  approaches  such  as  the  European  Statistical  System 
collaboration networks, and as part of the European Statistical System vision implementation 
projects. The work carried out in implementing the European Statistical System Vision 2020 
plays also a role in maximising EU added value. 

Public consultation 

45 responses have been received. The stakeholders who replied can be grouped into the three 
main groups: 

  Public authorities (national, regional, local)  - 21 replies 
  Registered organisations – 12 replies 
 
Individual contributions – 12 replies 

The results of the public consultation should be interpreted and analysed cautiously since due 
to the relatively low response rate the replies are not representative of the totality of users. 

Public authorities (national, regional, local) 

General remarks 

Most  of  the  respondents  representing  public  sector  of  the  MSs  replied  in  a  positive  way 
concerning the extension of the European statistical programme.  In particular, they noted the 
importance of European statistics to evidence-based policy making in  the EU as  well as an 
increasing need for the usage of statistics aimed at assessing the value and benefit of policies.  
Reliable statistics are required to  generate robust  evidence, and this is  hard to achieve with 
ad-hoc data collections.  

Some of the respondents of the public sector showed concerns regarding the overall quality 
and comparability of data provided, in particular the data on waste management as well as the 
difference  in  the  data  sources  used.  Consistency  and  coherence  between  the  methodologies 
were raised as important issues which will require further improvement and attention.  

54 

 
 
 
 
Some remarks have been posted concerning the timeliness of European statistics, e.g. in some 
cases  a  significant  lag  before  statistics  are  available  was  observed.  In  particular,  it  is 
important to shorten the production time since out-of-date statistics are of less interest. The 
respondents admit that additional investments might be needed to reduce these delays.  

Some  more  improvements  might  be  needed  in  the  area  of  dissemination  of  statistical 
products,  i.e.  more  user  friendly  publications,  usage  of  Geographical  Information  System 
(GIS). 

A clear support has been expressed by some of the respondents as concerns the potential for 
the usage of big data at EU level. The latter should be encouraged and taken into account in 
the extension of the programme for the years 2018-2020. 

The respondents have noted that  

 

it is important to ensure low respondent burden and to use more modern technologies 
for the production of European statistics; 

  data in some cases cannot be used for the regional policies due to high level of data 
aggregation.  Relevant  and  usable  available  administrative  data  should  be  used  at 
national  level,  without  double  data  collection,  without  increasing  the  administrative 
burden for respondents. This will require a stronger partnership and cooperation with 
the national authorities; 

  a real coordinated approach  should be created and developed at the EU and national 
levels: coordination between the actors involved; coherent legislative frameworks; 
reduction of administrative burden should become a priority. 

 

The  respondents  were  in  favour  to  implement  new  methods  of  production  of  European 
statistics  aiming  at  efficiency  gains  and  quality  improvements,  modernisation  and 
development of the European statistical infrastructure, with possibility of a different timeline 
and budget especially with regard to circular economy and the new waste package proposed 
by the Commission. 

Exploiting  the  possibilities  to  use  big  data  or  small  areas  estimates  and  the  use  of 
administrative  records  were  mentioned  as  tools  for  modernisation  which  in  its  turn  will 
improve quality characteristics of statistical information, in particular timeliness. 

Moreover,  respondents  considered  that  the  trend  towards  digitalisation  of  public  services 
opens opportunities to optimise the production of European statistics. 

They  also  argued  that,  due  to  the  economic  and  financial  crisis  it  is  important  to  make 
comparable the accounting systems, in particular improving the assessment of housing prices. 

Some  of  the  respondents  expressed  their  concern  that  the  heritage  sector  lacks  statistical 
information.  Increasing  understanding  of  the  actual  and  potential  role  of  heritage  in  policy 
development  is  a  driver  for  improvement  of  systematic  data  on  its  economic  and  social 
impacts.  The  challenge  is  availability  and  comparability  of  immovable  cultural  heritage  on 

55 

 
 
 
the  impacts  or  spill-over  effects  of  cultural  heritage  to  other  economic  sectors.    There  is  a 
need to compare stock and value of European cultural heritage. 

According to a few respondents, comparable European data on sport participation would also 
be a benefit, in particular European comparisons of participation by demographic groups and 
specific sports would be useful. 

A  few  respondents  highlighted  the  need  for  European  statistics  on  fire  and  rescue  services 
noting that harmonised, reliable and trusted Europe-wide fire statistics are very important to 
help  forming  the  policies  at  local,  national  and  European  levels.  This  is  all  about  data  on 
fires, fire deaths and injuries, economic loss from fire, causes of fires, etc.  

Respondents also called for greater effectiveness and efficiency, i.e. demand-driven surveys, 
tailor-made  research,  cost/benefit  analysis,  economic  modelling,  forecasts  and  projections. 
These constitute different tools for planning, measuring and monitoring development policy 
outcomes,  all  of  which  share  one  important  element:  reliable  statistics  upon  which  policy 
development  and  management  depend.  In  particular,  it  has  been  referred  to  the  regional 
policies where the data gaps still exist and the data are not always up to date. More and better 
statistics are needed at regional level to serve the Cohesion Policy for 2020. 

Respondents indicated that better statistics is needed to design and implement the programme 
policies to improve gender equality and increase women’s empowerment. 

Challenges posed by immigration create also a need for more robust statistics. In particular, 
respondents referred to the cross-EU statistics on third country nationals' returns or reasons 
for  migration.  MSs  will  be  assessed  on  their  performance  and  interventions  to  increase 
returns. To do this effectively, the need is to access accurate and comparable returns statistics 
disaggregated  by  return  type  and  return  destination.  Comparability  should  be  improved 
defining skilled and unskilled markets, intra-company workers and entrepreneurs. 

In general, respondents are satisfied with the accessibility of statistical information which has 
improved  over  the  recent  years.  However,  the  time  lag  from  the  collection  of  data  to  the 
dissemination is not very adequate. 

As for the policy options, it has been noted in a number of cases that taking into account the 
change of environment as the change of users' needs, it might be inevitable to make certain 
adaptations  in  the  European  Statistical  programme.  Any  major  adaptations  would  require 
more budget/resources, in particular if new data collections are involved. 

Registered organisations 

Respondents  identified  some  of  the  improvements  needed  in  order  to  better  reflect  the  true 
contribution of the music sector to jobs and growth. The current classification system doesn’t 
allow  the  music  sector’s  economic  contribution  to  be  properly  measured  in  terms  of  GDP, 
employment and exports.  

56 

 
 
 
Some gaps in statistical information have been indicated concerning mobility and circulation 
of  cultural  services;  data  on  export (outside  EU28)  and import  of  cultural  services; data  on 
mobility/free movement of workers in the cultural sectors for temporary employment outside 
the  own  resident  country;  comparable  data  such  as  ranking  of  cities  according  to  cultural 
infrastructure; public expenditure on culture (national, regional, local). 

Some  respondents  underlined  that  safety  and  security  industry  is  another  sector  requiring 
more  reflection  in  terms  of  statistics.  In  particular,  it  concerns  fire  safety  and  security 
markets.  Robust  statistical  information  would  contribute  to  the  creation  of  a  true  Single 
Market for security technologies, including safety, as well as natural and man-made disaster 
management topics. Currently, the data on these areas are insufficient. 

Data  gaps  were  mentioned  in  availability  of  statistics  on  resources  (mining,  water,  etc.), 
assets,  and  value-added  chain.  Information  on  SMEs  is  generally  based  on  the  number  of 
employees,  but  not  on  the  other  criteria  according  to  the  turnover,  balance  sheet  total, 
autonomy.  

For  social  statistics  a  better  coverage  of  benefits  in  kind  would  improve  this  domain  since 
non-monetary social benefits have substantial impacts on citizens. This coverage would close 
an important data gap for social policies. 

It  has  been  noted  that  as  for  short  term  statistics,  there  is  a  lack  of  information  about  new 
orders in the EU industry sector. Some concerns have been raised concerning the time lag of 
short  term  and  structural  business  statistics.  The  ESP  extension  should  also  include  further 
indicators  such  as  digitalisation  of  industry,  data  for  the  activities  of  EU-based  companies 
outside the internal market and resource efficiency. 

More data are requested on road tolls (extent of tolled networks vs non-tolled); ownership of 
locomotives; limitations of rail infrastructure, transport accidents, etc.). 

Some  new  data  are  required  in  the  health  sector,  in  particular  on  new  and  emerging 
professions in the health sector. 

A  respondent  raised  concerns  on  the  fact  that  international  comparisons  are  hampered 
because some statistics are measured at different points of time. LFS is an important example 
for that.  

Only a few less important statistical areas have been noted by respondents, e.g. reduction of 
periodicities of data collection on information society statistics, especially in enterprises. For 
monitoring of food prices existing data should be used. The average prices should be avoided 
in order to avoid misleading conclusions on a very sensitive issue as prices. 

Overall,  the  organisation-respondents  indicated  that  burden  on  respondents  should  not  be 
increased.  More  efficient  use  of  administrative  data  and  other  secondary  sources  has  high 
potential  for  the  data  quality  improvements.  There  should  be  more  and  more  synergies 
between the different statistical domains in the ESS. New methods of producing statistics are 

57 

 
 
 
highly  appreciated.  However,  reference  is  made  to  cost-benefit  aspects.  It  has  to  be 
considered exhaustively, in particular taking into account quality aspects.  

While  Eurostat’s  databases  are  in  a  leading  position  if  compared  internationally  some 
improvements still could be made, especially when displaying the results. 

Individual contributions – 12 replies 

Some  of  the  individual  respondents  mentioned  fire  statistics  as  a  potential  domain  to  be 
covered  by  the  European  statistical  programme  extension  since  it  is  considered  as  an 
important  social,  economic  and  environmental  phenomena  and  it  is  covered  insufficiently 
within the current statistical programme. 

More data are needed on property market, renewable energies, bio energies, emissions. 

Some respondents referred to the need for modernised methods and ways of data collection, 
like  usage  of  big  data,  so  that  the  burden  on  respondents  is  not  increased.  Other 
methodologies  could  be  also  utilised,  such  as  indirect  questioning  techniques  in  sample 
surveys. There should be changes including open data and cloud computing to improve data 
access  potential  or  electronic  data  gathering  and  GPS  mobile  devices.  They  also  noted  the 
importance  of  cooperation  and  partnership  between  different  institutions  engaged  in  data 
collection and ownership. 

Other relevant groups 

The European Statistical Governance Advisory Board (ESGAB) is mandated to report to 
the  Council  and  the  Parliament  on  implementation  of  the  Code  of  Practise  in  the  ESS  as  a 
whole.  In  its  recent  (November  2015)  annual  report29  the  Board  included  into  the  set  of 
recommendations a need to explore and use new methodologies and new data sources such as 
Big  data;    to  improve    cost-accounting  systems    and  provide  early  estimates  of  the  cost  of 
producing  European  statistics  in  order  to  insure  adequate  comparability  and  coverage.  The 
estimates  should  be  used  for  a  benchmarking  exercise  covering  statistical  systems  at 
international level. The ESGAB clearly supported in their report the option 2.c.  

Summary results of the stakeholder consultation 

When analysing the feedback from the different stakeholders, a basic divergence between the 
user  and  producer  groups  can  be  observed.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  any  user  needs  statistical 
products  of  the  highest  possible  quality,  which  among  others  covers  relevance,  timeliness, 
sufficient  coverage,  comparability  in  a  very  timely  manner  and  as  detailed  as  possible. 
However,  the  producers  of  the  European  statistics  encounter  a  series  of  challenges  to  meet 
those demands and to maintain the adequate balance between scarce resources, timeliness as 
well as other quality parameters, such as exhaustiveness, comparability.  

Due to ever decreasing resources for the production of European statistics in the NSIs on the 
one hand and the increasing demand for the European statistics from the users' perspective on 

29 Annual Report 2015 available on ESGAB homepage http://ec.europa.eu/esgab 

58 

 
 
 
                                                            
the other, some of the proposals formulated by the user groups are considered too ambitious 
by the producers. A few examples to be mentioned: indicators on income and consumption 
distribution  across  household  groups  –  some  countries  generally  consider  this  as  very 
ambitious.  The  NSIs  indicated  that  the  development  of  timely  social  indicators,  including 
advanced  techniques  for  now-casting  and  flash  estimates  might  be  very  ambitious  as  well; 
nevertheless  the  use  of  now-cast  and  flash  estimates  is  quite  useful.  Therefore,  it  was 
emphasized that quality requirements have to be respected. 

The  development  of  environmental  accounts  as  ‘satellite  accounts’  to  the  main  national 
accounts is considered unrealistic due to the human resources constraints. As formulated now 
the  objective  presents  a  significant  increase  in  statistical  burden.  Statistics  on  trade  in  raw 
material  is  considered  too  ambitious  by  end  2020.  Development  of  eco-system  accounts 
should  not  be  given  a  high  priority.  Some  countries  are  against  inclusion  of  eco-system 
accounts in the objectives of the ESP extension.  

Respondents considered that streamlining of business statistics legislation should be pursued, 
but  with  due  consideration  of  resource  constraints,  burden  on  respondents  and  user  needs. 
Micro  data  are  clearly  the  preferable  solution  for  researchers,  meso  data  should  be  only  a 
second choice. 

The overall agreement to modernise statistical production processes was expressed across the 
different stakeholders groups.  

59 

 
 
 
 
 
Annex 3 

Who is affected by the initiative and how  

Producers of statistics 

The programme will support an investment in the European statistical infrastructure, allowing 
for the modernisation of the European Statistical System and the harnessing big data sources 
for the production.  

Due to co-financing, higher budget for the ESP implies higher budgetary needs also for the 
own contributions of the national statistical institutes. Furthermore, development projects will 
often need highly skilled expertise, either from the organisation (i.e. a re-allocation of staff) 
and/or through external recruitment.   

Respondents 

Response burden is expected to decrease: while the EU social survey would have a minimal 
impact  on  burden,  significant  reduction  of  burden  are  expected  from  the  better  use  of 
administrative data and new sources (big data).  

Users of statistics 

Users  will  benefit  from  the  initiative  as  it  addresses  the  main  quality  aspects  which  are 
important  for  users  (as  defined  in  the  European  statistics  Code  of  Practice):  timeliness, 
relevance and comparability: 

Timeliness: timeliness refers to the period between the availability of the information and the 
event or phenomenon it describes (or time lag). In the public consultation, in particular public 
authorities  provided  remarks  concerning  the  timeliness  of  European  statistics,  e.g.  in  some 
cases a significant lag before statistics are available was observed. It is in particular important 
to shorten the production time since out-of-date statistics are of less interest. 

Relevance: European statistics meet the needs of users. In the context of the programme, it 
includes  the  following  questions:  does  the  scope  of  European  statistics  correspond  to  the 
needs of the users? What does the programme cover in terms of user interaction, user-friendly 
dissemination and targeted products and services?  

Comparability/harmonisation:  European  Statistics  are  consistent  internally,  over  time  and 
comparable  between  regions  and countries; it  is  possible  to combine  and  make  joint  use  of 
related data from different sources. 

60 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Annex 4 

Analytical model used in preparing the Impact Assessment 

Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) 

The  MCA  has  been  chosen  because  the  costs  and  benefits  for  substantiating  a  cost/benefit 
analysis  (CBA)  are  difficult  to  calculate  and  quantify  respectively,  as  the  ESP  covers  the 
entirety  of European Statistics, most  of  which are  collected based on individual legislation. 
Multi-criteria analysis aims to compare different actions or solutions according to a variety of 
criteria.  The  method  is  based  on  the  evaluation  of  actions  by  means  of  a  weighted  average 
and  can  be  used  to  select  or  hierarchise  solutions.  In  addition,  while  CBA  aims  to  achieve 
economic efficiency, MCA’s primary concern is effectiveness. In this case, the production of 
statistics  is  mainly  based  on  individual  regulations  and  the  main  purpose  of  statistics  is  to 
support a data-based policy making – this gives way to multiple cases where the need for data 
is vital and as such outweighs the potentially higher cost.  

Multi-criteria  analysis  is  a  technique  to  reach  a  judgment  based  on  an  explicit  set  of 
objectives and associated criteria. Typically, MCA will be used to assess and rank alternative 
options in an impact assessment, or to assess the extent to which a variety of objectives have 
or not been met, in a retrospective evaluation or fitness check. In this case, the criteria chosen 
include  the  impact  on  timeliness  of  statistics,  on  the  relevance,  on  burden  (reduced  or 
increased)  on  respondents,  on  the  degree  of  harmonisation  and  on  shared  infrastructure. 
Multi-Criteria  Analysis  is  particularly  useful  when  impact  assessment  has  to  be  reconciled 
with  specific  policy  objectives,  and  as  such  is  used  as  an  instrument  of  ensuring  the 
simultaneous assessment of effectiveness, efficiency and coherence of policies. This method 
allows to capture and evidence distributional impacts (e.g. in terms of stakeholder types, EU 
regions/countries  or  time)  and  trade-offs  between  dimensions  (such  as  between  some 
economic, social or environmental impacts, or between some families of criteria). 

A prime advantage of MCA over CBA is indeed that it does not hide distributional impacts 
and trade-offs into one overall score, but on the contrary enables to judge the pros and cons of 
various  policy  options  based  on  their  profile  along  the  main  comparison  criteria  (usually 
multiple, since not just efficiency but effectiveness and coherence are prime considerations to 
be included when ranking options). Unlike CBA, which can illustrate the overall additional 
welfare  generated  by  an  intervention  but  without  any  consideration  whatever  of  how  costs 
and benefits are distributed among stakeholders, in space or in time. 

The MCA has been applied in a stepwise procedure, but adapted it to the specific needs for 
this  impact  assessment.  The  standard  procedure  for  performing  a  MCA  consists  of  3  steps. 
The  same  approach  can  be  followed  in  the  evaluation  context  by  replacing  different  policy 
options with different categories of impacts: 

For each of N policy options (or alternatives in general) a number of indicators (or criteria) 
should  be  established  which  are  important  in  determining  an  overall  ranking  of  policy 
options. Three pieces of information are needed: 

61 

 
 
 
 
 
- Performance of given policy option with respect to each criterion (i.e. the numerical value 
of the pertinent indicator); 

- Weight (importance) attached to each criterion; 

- Direction of each criterion with respect to overall objective. That is, whether higher values 
of a criterion correspond to better (denoted by +1) or worse (denoted by -1) performance of 
the option. We have adapted this by adding a value for stasis or stagnation; a zero multiplier, 
if  during  repeated  application  we  found  performance  to  be  static  and  thus  not  influencing 
assessment  for  a  given  evaluation  segment,  but  ended  up  not  having  a  use  for  it  in  this 
particular instalment. 

Implementation steps 

Thus,  as  a  first  step,  a  set  of  criteria  has  been  established,  considering  the  main  types  of 
impacts on users as they came across from the stakeholder consultation, and Eurostat's crucial 
role in harmonisation at European level.  

Increased  timeliness  has  been  considered  of  utmost  importance  in  a  fast-moving  world, 
giving  the  policy  makers  the  possibility  to  react  quickly  to  changes  in  the  environment. 
Measuring timeliness then becomes mandatory, and the monitoring of the ESP extension will 
foresee new indicators for measuring not only the respect of data "punctuality", but also the 
freshness of information. It is particularly important to shorten the production time since out-
of-date statistics are of less interest. 

Increased relevance (as defined in the ESS Code of Practice): European statistics meet the 
needs of users. In the context of the programme, it includes the following questions: does the 
scope of European statistics correspond to the needs of the users? The relevance of European 
Statistics for a particular user is determined by several factors, like timeliness, responsiveness 
to new needs, coverage of specific (sub-)populations or geographical breakdown. 

Reduced burden on both enterprises and citizens is one of the priorities of the Commission, 
reflected in the objectives of the Better Regulation Package. New data collections via surveys 
are  limited  as  they  would  impose  a  burden  on  respondents  –  so  alternative  ways of  getting 
data need to be found (such as administrative data and big data).  

Reduced costs for the ESS can be achieved through investments in the modernisation of the 
statistical  infrastructure,  the  implementation  of  shared  tools,  new  survey  schemes  and  data 
collection methods as well as the use of new, more efficient data sources. 

Increased  harmonisation  as  it  is  one  of  the  fundamental  principles  of  the  ESS,  and 
harmonising  methods  and  processes  will  contribute  significantly  to  quality  improvements, 
while sharing tools and services will lower costs of production.  

Level of shared infrastructure: tools and services developed in other Member States and on 
international  level  help  to  decrease  costs  of  development.  In  a  rather  tough  situation  of 
diminishing resources, a joint effort seems to be a very sensible approach.  

62 

 
 
 
Impact  on  EU  budget  &  HR  costs  is  another  important  criterion  and  linked  to  the  other 
criteria  since  modernisation  activities  and  the  use  of  new  data  sources  will  require  initial 
investments. 

Secondly, a relative weight has been assigned to each criterion (out of a total of 1). Since the 
first two criteria  (timeliness, relevance) are considered to  be of highest importance to  users  
and  the  third  criterion  (burden)  is  the  most  important  for  respondents,  an  equal  relative 
weight of 0,20 has been assigned to them. The criterion harmonisation is important to users 
but not to the same level as timeliness and relevance, it has therefore received the weight of 
0,10.  The  other  three  criteria,  which  primarily  concern  the  production  of  statistics  and  not 
outside users or respondents, have also been ranked lower, with an equal relative weight of 
0,10 each.  

Thirdly,  a  direction  was  established  for  each  criterion  in  relation  to  each  option.  Direction 
indicates an increase +1, stagnation 0 or reduction -1.  

Fourthly, the performance of each policy option in relation to each criterion has been rated on 
a  scale  from  0  to  30.  A  weighted  performance  has  been  then  calculated:  the  weighted 
performance  of  each  criterion  is  the  product  of  performance,  weight  and  direction.  Each 
policy option is ranked in ascending order according to its weighted performance. To further 
emphasize the importance of each criterion (as expressed via the assigned weight), a ranked 
weight is calculated by multiplying the criterion's rank by its weight. The final  score is the 
sum of the ranked weights thus obtained for each criterion. 

Multiplication  of  the  Performance,  Weighting  and  Direction  gives  a  composite  quantity 
which allows each policy option to be compared and ranked in respect to each criterion. 

Traditionally, the second step is in a Multi-criteria analysis (MCA) is to build a square N x N 
matrix,  called  the  outranking  matrix,  which  summarizes  how  one  option  compares  against 
another for all possible pairs of policy options. 

As  the  assessed  policy  options  in  our  impact  assessment  are  mutually  exclusive,  and  to 
further circumvent some of the known practical shortcoming of MCA using Kemeny’s rule 
(as  laid  out  in  detail  in  http://ec.europa.eu/smart-regulation/guidelines/tool_57_en.htm  )  a 
more  straightforward  simple  impact  matrix  was  used,  leading  to  a  straightforward 
comparative ranking matrix for each policy option's weighted performance according to the 
selected  criteria,  instead  of  the  traditional  pairing  and  pairwise  agreement  assessment  of 
policy options. 

To  further  refine  the  ranking  matrix,  the  traditional  MCA's  binary  assessment  has  been 
abandoned in favour of a graded scale allowing for more nuanced ranking.  Thus instead of 
summing  of  the  weightings  of  comparatively  superior  or  more  efficient  policy  options, 
thereby  losing  the  actual  degree  of  relative  strength  for  each  criterion  due  to  simplification 
inherent in the traditional model, they were instead ranked in ascending order then weighted 
by that rank. 

63 

 
 
 
The optimal ranking is the one with the highest score for any given criterion, while the model 
chosen preserves the weighted importance of second-highest ranking policy options. 

This approach allows highlighting cases where, though a particular policy option might score 
only second- or third-highest for certain criteria, it still significantly outperforms other policy 
options in total, while preserving the actual scores for those interested in more detail. 

The weightings, direction and performance of the all options need to be determined for each 
of the five criteria. The importance of the criteria is reflected in the respective weights. 

As  each  policy  option's  ascending  rank  of  weighted  performance  has  been  multiplied 
according to each criterion by that criterion's weight, and it being a general recommendation 
to complement this type of MCA with sensitivity analysis to determine the robustness of the 
final ranking to the assumption about the weights given to each criterion, particular care was 
given  to  going  through  several  iterations  of  establishing  the  weights  for  each  relative 
criterion. 

This assessment was run through separate iterations for each of four different objectives, but 
as  the  number  of  policy  options  to  be  compared  according  to  the  number  of  criteria, 
multiplied by the number of objectives, becomes computationally intractable in view of being 
readily  understandable  by  stakeholders,  only  the  final  iteration  and  averaged  out  optimal 
ranking was included as a provably-best approximation of the results. 

64 

 
 
 
Results of the Multi-Criteria Analysis: 

Legend: 

The relative weight of each criterion is out of a total of 1. Direction indicates either increase 
(+1),  stagnation  (0)  or  reduction  (-1).  Performance  of  each  policy  option  for  each  of  the 
criteria is rated on a scale from 0 to 30, automatically multiplied by direction, weighted, and 
then  ranked  below.  The  weighted  performance  of  each  criterion  is  the  product  of  its 
performance,  weight  and  direction.  Ranked  weight  is  obtained  by  multiplying  a  policy 
option's ascending rank by the weight of the respective criterion. The final score is calculated 
as the sum of the ranked weights obtained for each criterion. 

65 

Input matrix12a2b2c3CriteriaWeightDirectionPerformanceDirectionPerformanceDirectionPerformanceDirectionPerformanceDirectionPerformanceIncreased timeliness0,20115112123110Increased relevance0,20-1101812415Reduced burden0,20151712017Increased harmonisation0,10115115125115Reduced costs for the ESS0,101511011515Level of shared infrastructure0,1015110120110Impact on EU budget & HR costs0,1015-12-115-15Ranking matrixCriteria12a2b2c312a2b2c3Increased timeliness3,02,44,62,00,60,40,80,2Increased relevance-2,01,64,81,00,20,60,80,4Reduced burden 1,01,44,01,40,20,40,80,4Increased harmonisation1,51,52,51,50,10,10,40,1Reduced costs for the ESS0,51,01,50,50,10,30,40,1Level of shared infrastructure0,51,02,01,00,10,20,40,2Impact on EU budget & HR costs0,5-0,2-1,5-0,50,40,30,10,212a2b2c31,72,33,71,6Option 1: "No change" policy: same ESP extended for 3 yearsOption 2: Extension of the current ESP for 3 years with adaptations:Sub-option 2a: Amendments and reduced budgetSub-option 2b: Amendments and same budgetSub-option 2c: Amendments and higher budgetOption 3: Several statistical programmesFinal ScoresPolicy OptionsWeighted performanceRanked weight 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Annex 5 

Budgetary impacts of the different policy options 

The  estimated  impacts  of  the  different  policy  options  on  the  EU  budget  are  based  on  cost 
assessments made by the responsible Eurostat directorates. The estimated costs are based on 
the  budget  figures  and  calculations  for  previous  Eurostat  projects  of  a  similar  scope  and 
nature.  The  figures  related  to  the  expected  average  cost  per  year  for  the  three-year  period 
expressed  in  million  Euros  for  the  operational  budget  (i.e.  for  spending  on  grants  and 
procurement).  The  costs  estimations  can  be  considered  a  being  robust,  as  Eurostat  has 
calculated  the  cost  of  each  statistical  product  it  produces  and  disseminates,  and  has  a  long 
experience on assessing the costs for the design and implementation of statistical surveys. 

Annual budget for Option 1: 

Operational costs (€ m) 

2018 
62.7 

2019 
64.3 

2020 
65.9 

Total 
192.9 

Under  the  baseline  option,  the  planned  annual  budgets  from  the  Multi-annual  Financial 
Framework would not change. 

Annual budget for Option 2a: 

This option was discarded at an early stage. 

Annual budget for Option 2b: 

Operational costs (€ m) 

2018 
62.7 

2019 
64.3 

2020 
65.9 

Total 
192.9 

Under  this  option,  the  planned  annual  budgets  from  the  Multi-annual  Financial  Framework 
would not change, as investments in new outputs under Objective 1 would be  compensated 
by reductions in other areas, as indicated below. 

Objective 1 
(statistical 
outputs) 

Improved outputs, based on a prioritisation of user needs: 

• 

Improve the timeliness of data about inequality, 
poverty and material deprivation 

•  Enlarge the production of statistics on energy and 

improve their timeliness 
Improve quality and timeliness of environmental data 

• 

+ € 6 m 
annually 

Significant reduction in the scope of work on, and support to 
Member States, on: 

- € 6 m 
annually 

ICT statistics (reduction in the periodicity) 

•  Purchasing power parities 
•  Waste statistics 
•  Fisheries 
•  Forestry 
• 
•  Key indicators on European cities 
•  Crime and criminal justice 
•  Agro-environment 
•  Tourism 
•  Population projection (regional component) 

Objective 2 

The objective remains the same as in ESP 2013-2017 but the  Same 

66 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
(modernisation)  actions are mainly focused on basic infrastructure and pilot 

budget 

Objective 3 
(partnership) 

projects for modernisation. 
The objective remains the same as in ESP 2013-2017. 

Same 
budget 

Annual budget for Option 2c: 

Operational costs (€ m) 

2018 
84.7 

2019 
93.4 

2020 
101.8 

Total 
279.9 

This option requires an increased budget for the European Statistical Programme 2018-2020 
in  order  to  adequately  finance  the  new  and  improved  outputs  under  Objective  1  and  the 
modernisation projects to be launched under Objective 2, as specified below.  

Objective 1 
(statistical 
outputs) 

New and improved outputs: 

• 

Improve the timeliness of data about inequality, 
poverty and material deprivation of people in Europe 
(including flash estimates) 

•  Enlarge the production of statistics on energy 

• 

(efficiency, security, renewables, consumption, prices, 
etc.) and improve their timeliness 
Improve quality and timeliness of environmental data 
to support climate change policy and the circular 
economy 

•  Measure UN Sustainable Development Goals 
•  Support drivers for technological change and e-

commerce 
Improve annual population projections 

• 
•  Extend housing price statistics 
•  Extend coverage of statistics on the services sector 
•  Measure globalisation 

Same outputs compared to ESP 2013-2017 (no reduction 
envisaged) 

Objective 2 
(modernisation) 

EU social survey to increase substantially the timeliness and 
comparability of social indicators and preparatory work for the 
European approach to statistics  
Statistics on demand and dissemination as a service 

Modernisation including new sources (big data)  

Basic infrastructure and pilot projects for modernisation 

Objective 3 
(partnership) 

Partnership 

+ € 10 m 
annually 

Same 
budget 

+ € 4 m 
annually 

+ € 3 m 
annually 
+ € 12 m 
annually 
Same 
budget 
Same 
budget 

67 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Annual budget for Option 3: 

As this option is not different in terms of the objectives and work planned under Option 2b, 
the  planned  annual  budgets  from  the  Multi-annual  Financial  Framework  would  not  change 
compared  to  the  baseline  scenario.  However,  additional  human  resources  would  need  to  be 
requested,  and  some  internal resources  would  need  to  be  shifted  from  statistical  production 
and  modernisation  projects  to  programme  management  in  order  to  manage  two  parallel 
programmes. 

68 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Annex 6 

List of abbreviations 

AAR 

ADMIN 

AWP 

CBA 

CSP 

DG 

ECOFIN 

ESAC   

ESGAB 

ESP 

ESS 

ESSC   

FRIBS  

FSS 

GDP 

IASG   

ISC 

KPI 

LUCAS 

MCA   

MEETS 

MFF 

MP 

NSI 

OECD  

ONA 

PEEI 

R&D 

Annual Activity Reports 

Vision Implementation Project Administrative Data Sources 

Annual Work Programme 

Cost-Benefit Analysis 

Community Statistical Programme 

Directorate-General 

Economic and Financial Affairs Council 

European Statistical Advisory Committee 

European Statistical Governance Advisory Board 

European Statistical Programme 

European Statistical System 

European Statistical System Committee 

Framework Regulation Integrating Business Statistics 

Farm Structure Survey 

Gross Domestic Product 

Impact Assessment Steering Group 

Inter-Service Consultation 

Key Performance Indicator 

Land Cover/Use Survey 

Multi-Criteria Analysis 

Modernisation of European Enterprise and Trade Statistics 

Multiannual Financial Framework 

Management Plan 

National statistical institute 

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development 

Other national authority 

Principal European Economic Indicator 

Research and Development 

SIMSTAT 

Single Market Statistics project 

SWD 

SDG 

USS 

TFEU   

Staff Working Document 

Sustainable Development Goal 

User Satisfaction Survey 

Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union 

69 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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70 

 
 
 
 
 
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71