DS ESS > Governance bodies> European Statistical System Committee (ESSC) EN REVAMP

Creation

The European Statistical System Committee (ESSC) is at the heart of the ESS. It was established by EU regulation 223/2009 on European statistics.

Set-up

The ESSC is organised as follows:

  • chaired by the European Commission (Eurostat)
  • composed of representatives of the EU countries' national statistical institutes (NSI) and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries as well as the EFTA statistical office
  • on a voluntary basis: observers from the European Statistical Governance Advisory Board (ESGAB), European Statistical Advisory Committee (ESAC), European Central Bank (ECB), International Monetary Fund (IMF), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), and United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD). 

The committee meets 3 times a year.

Responsibilities

The committee ’shall provide professional guidance to the ESS for developing, producing, and disseminating European statistics’, according to Article 7 of the regulation setting out the task of the ESSC.

This means that the European Commission shall consult the ESS committee on the following aspects:

  • measures which the European Commission intends to take for
    • the development, production, and dissemination of European statistics
    • their justification on a cost-effectiveness basis
    • the means and timetables for achieving them
    • the reporting burden on survey respondents
  • proposed developments and priorities in the European statistical programme
  • the annual work programme for the following year
  • initiatives to put into practice the reprioritisation and reduction of the response burden
  • issues concerning statistical confidentiality
  • further development of the European Statistics Code of Practice
  • any other questions, in particular issues of methodology which arise from the establishment or implementation of statistical programmes.

As a committee, the ESSC also assists the European Commission in the adoption of implementing acts for statistical legislation, according to EU regulation 182/2011 laying down the rules and general principles concerning mechanisms for control by Member States of the Commission’s exercise of implementing powers.

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