Statistical cooperation - European Neighbourhood Policy-East (ENP-E)

Article last updated: February 2023.

This article forms part of a set of background articles which introduce the statistical cooperation activities of the European Union (EU) with non EU countries and focuses on cooperation with eastern European and southern Caucasus countries in the context of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP).

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Countries concerned and the partnership

The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) — established in 2004 — reflects the European Union´s (EU) wish to build on common interests with partner countries and commitment to work jointly in key priority areas. The ENP-East region covers Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus ^[1], Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. On 23 June 2022 the European Council gave a European perspective and granted candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova and gave European perspective to Georgia

The European Neighbourhood Policy was reviewed in 2015. The review was set out in the Joint Communication Review of the European Neighbourhood Policy of 18 November 2015. The main principles of the revised policy were a tailored approach to partner countries; flexibility; joint ownership; greater involvement of EU member states and shared responsibility. The ENP aims to deepen engagement with civil society and social partners. It offers partner countries greater access to the EU’s market and regulatory framework, standards and internal agencies and programmes.

The Eastern Partnership (EaP), launched in 2009, is a joint initiative of the European Union, its Member States and the six ENP-East countries. The EaP is a strategic partnership, based on common values and rules, mutual interests and commitments, shared ownership and responsibility. It aims to strengthen and deepen the political and economic relations between the parties. The EaP supports many global policies and contributes to the overall goal of increasing the stability, prosperity, and resilience of the EU’s neighbours as set out in the 2015 European neighbourhood policy review and the Joint Communication: Eastern Partnership policy beyond 2020: Reinforcing Resilience – an Eastern Partnership that delivers for all. The Joint Staff Working Document: Recovery, resilience and reform: post 2020 Eastern Partnership priorities of July 2021 develops the EaP agenda further.

The Eastern Partnership Summit Joint Declaration of 15 December 2021 reaffirmed strong commitment to a strategic, ambitious and forward-looking Eastern Partnership.

Cooperation in statistics

Eurostat has been supporting statistical capacity building in the ENP-East countries and in the region for a number of years by:

providing statistical assistance to national statistical authorities;
sharing best practice and the transfer of know-how;
collecting, validating and disseminating a wide range of data;
assisting countries in the process of harmonisation towards European and international norms and standards.

The Statistics Through Eastern Partnership (STEP) programme (2019 – 2022) was a key tool for statistical cooperation. STEP aimed to strengthen the partner countries’ statistical capacity to develop, produce and disseminate high-quality statistics and to reinforce the independence and institutional capacity of the countries’ national statistical systems.

The national statistical authorities of all ENP-East countries are offered also training courses that are modelled on the courses provided within the European Statistical Training Programme.

Eurostat organises an annual high-level seminar for the heads of the national statistical authorities of the countries to discuss the latest developments in statistics and statistical cooperation.

Eurostat, in cooperation with the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), organises statistical assessments of the national statistical systems of the ENP-East countries. These assessments provide a clear picture of the state of development of official statistics in a given country, covering:

the administrative and technical capacity of the statistical system;
the statistical law and other legal acts;
the application of European and international standards and principles (such as the European Statistics Code of Practice and the United Nations’ Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics;
the existing mechanisms used by the national statistical authority to coordinate the statistical system;
a review of medium and long-term planning.

The assessments result in reports that contain recommendations by the experts conducting the assessments. These aim at helping the countries to improve their systems where needed and to better target financial and technical assistance.

Twinning and TAIEX

Twinning and TAIEX are EU instruments through which technical assistance on statistics may also be provided. Twinning takes a medium-term perspective (up to six months under the ‘light’ option) or longer-term perspective (from a minimum of 12 months up to a maximum of 36 months), providing direct expertise from EU Member States on specific topics. TAIEX – the Technical Assistance and Information Exchange Instrument of the European Commission - supports public administrations in the approximation, application and enforcement of EU legislation. It also facilitates the sharing of EU best practices. TAIEX is needs-driven and delivers appropriate tailor-made expertise to address issues at short notice.

Data collection and dissemination

Although ENP-East countries and Eurostat are not legally obliged to exchange statistical data, Eurostat collects data from the countries. Partner countries’ participation is voluntary in an annual data collection that a contractor conducts on behalf of Eurostat. Such data exchanges are a tangible outcome of statistical cooperation.

The data are collected on several social, economic and environmental themes, such as population, health, living conditions, education, the labour market, the economy, international trade in goods, agriculture, business statistics and tourism, communications and the information society, research and development, transport, energy and the environment.

After validation by the contractor, the data are uploaded onto the ENP-East domain of Eurobase, Eurostat’s free reference database. The data are also used to prepare publications with figures collected from the countries.

More information on statistical cooperation is available free of charge on the ENP section of Eurostat’s website.