The aim of the regulation is to create a common framework for European statistics relating to persons and households, based on data at individual level collected from samples.
MEP Tamás Meszerics led the negotiations on the Parliament’s side. The Council was represented by Mr. Sergey Tsvetarsky, Chair of the Working Party on Statistics and President of the National Statistical Institute. The Commission’s delegation was led by Ms. Mariana Kotzeva, Director General of Eurostat.
Seven trilogues were conducted on this file in a friendly atmosphere and in search of a mutually acceptable agreement on the amendments proposed by the Parliament and the Council. The following issues that were discussed during these meetings were of particular interest to the three sides:
- providing timely, high-quality and comparable statistics at EU level on persons and households;
- striking a balance between the growing need for statistics for analyses, surveys and EU policy-making in the fields of social protection and employment, safeguarding the quality of statistics, and managing the burden on national statistical authorities and respondents;
- providing opportunities for the future development of surveys in the area of social statistics by ensuring financial support for the Member States.
Over the course of the discussions an agreement was reached on these matters, and the negotiations were successfully concluded with the achieving of a well-balanced compromise safeguarding the interests of the three sides.
