On the Parliament’s side the negotiations were led by Mr. Roberto Gualtieri, Chair of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. 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.
The Presidency negotiated on the basis of the mandate given by COREPER (Committee of Permanent Representatives of the Governments of the Member States) after a general approach was reached at the Working Party on Statistics at the end of 2017. The discussion focused on the document prepared by the Bulgarian Presidency before the trilogue with proposals for reaching a compromise between the Member States’ position and the Parliament’s amendments.
The most contentious issues were related to guaranteeing the quality of GNI statistics without significantly increasing the burden on national statistical authorities and respondents.
After hearing each side’s arguments, mutually acceptable compromise texts were formulated and agreed upon, thus paving the way for the successful conclusion of the negotiations. The final adoption of the proposal for a regulation by the EU’s two legislators – the Parliament and the Commission – is pending.
