2012/504/EU: Commission Decision of 17 September 2012 on Eurostat

18.9.2012 EN Official Journal of the European Union L 251/49
COMMISSION DECISION
of 17 September 2012
on Eurostat
(2012/504/EU)
THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION
,
Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,
Whereas:
(1) Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2009 on European statistics (1) provides the basic legal framework for European statistics. That Regulation refers to the Commission (Eurostat) as the Union’s statistical authority responsible for the development, production and dissemination of European statistics.
(2) European statistics should be developed, produced and disseminated by Eurostat in accordance with the statistical principles set out in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and in Regulation (EC) No 223/2009, and further elaborated in the European statistics Code of Practice as reviewed and updated by the European Statistical System Committee on 28 September 2011.
(3) Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 also provides for the protection of confidential data, which should be used exclusively for statistical purposes.
(4) The Commission has undertaken to reinforce the statistical governance in the Union and to respect the above statistical principles (2). This commitment was confirmed and further developed in the Communication of 15 April 2011 to the European Parliament and the Council ‘Towards robust quality management for European Statistics’ (3). The present Decision should be regarded as a renewed commitment from the Commission on confidence in European statistics developed, produced and disseminated by Eurostat.
(5) Recent developments in the Union’s economic governance framework have had an impact on the statistical domain and should be taken into account. This concerns, in particular, statistical independence as laid down in Regulation (EU) No 1175/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 November 2011 amending Council Regulation (EC) No 1466/97 on the strengthening of the surveillance of budgetary positions and the surveillance and coordination of economic policies (4).
(6) In this context, the powers of the Commission as appointing authority with regard to the recruitment, transfer and dismissal of the Director-General of Eurostat should be exercised, in accordance with the Staff Regulations, with due regard to the need to guarantee independence, objectivity and efficiency in the exercise of his or her responsibilities, and following a transparent procedure based on professional criteria only.
(7) In addition, Eurostat has been assigned specific tasks by Council Regulation (EC) No 479/2009 of 25 May 2009 on the application of the Protocol on the excessive deficit procedure annexed to the Treaty establishing the European Community (5).
(8) Furthermore, as set out in the Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on ‘the production method of EU statistics: a vision for the next decade’ (6), Eurostat should provide a high-quality statistical service by also enhancing relations with the Union bodies in order to anticipate statistical needs and advance the usage of existing statistics. This also involves building closer relations with other services of the Commission.
(9) Statistics should be defined with reference to Regulation (EC) No 223/2009. For the purposes of this Decision, a distinction should also be made between European statistics and other statistics.
(10) Setting policy objectives and determining the information required to achieve these objectives is a matter for policymakers. Those activities should therefore fall within the mandate and responsibilities of the concerned Commission services, while Eurostat should ensure the programming of activities related to European statistics, taking into account user needs, relevant policy developments and resource constraints.
(11) Commission activities related to other statistics should be subject to a planning and coordination exercise with a view to ensuring consolidated information on these activities. This exercise should be steered by Eurostat and its scope limited to subjects upon which there is mutual agreement between the Commission services concerned and Eurostat.
(12) European statistics are determined by the European statistical programme and the corresponding annual work programme.
(13) To secure public trust in European statistics and to promote high-quality statistics developed, produced and disseminated by Eurostat, a process for labelling European statistics should be developed and applied.
(14) The development, production and dissemination of high-quality European statistics should be safeguarded by the Director-General of Eurostat, who is the Chief Statistician. In addition, his or her tasks should include coordinating the statistical activities of the Commission with a view to ensuring quality and minimising reporting burden. Therefore, the Chief Statistician should also be consulted on the development and production of other statistics.
(15) Close cooperation between Eurostat and other Commission services on statistical activities and the appropriate coordination of these activities by the Chief Statistician should ensure the coherence and comparability of European statistics and a better response to future challenges, in particular the need to minimise response burden and administrative burden. For the same purposes, access to administrative data sources within the Commission should be provided to the extent necessary and cost-effective for the development, production and dissemination of European statistics.
(16) Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2000 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data by the Community institutions and bodies and on the free movement of such data (7) is applicable to the extent Eurostat processes personal data. In addition, European statistics produced on the basis of personal data should be gender-disaggregated when relevant.
(17) It is therefore necessary to further define and clarify Eurostat’s role and responsibilities within the Commission.
(18) Commission Decision 97/281/EC of 21 April 1997 on the role of Eurostat as regards the production of Community statistics (8) should be repealed,