The purpose of the meeting was to discuss at the highest level of the issues related to the preparation of the next round of Peer reviews - a key tool for enhancing confidence in official statistics, while respecting the principles of the European Statistics Code of Practice.
The NSI’s President Sergey Tsvetarsky, who said that the Peer reviews provide extremely reliable and objective guidelines for developing a national program for building statistical capacity, opened the meeting. ‘The future of official statistics is based on the trust and high quality of statistical products and services, both in National Statistical Systems and at the level of the European Statistical System’, pointed out Mr. Tsvetarsky.
The Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Donchev was present at the opening of the event, congratulating the participants and stressing the importance of statistical information for state governance. Mr. Donchev noted that users need more up-to-date, complete and correct statistics in digital society, and Peer reviews are one of the ways to improve the quality of statistical information.
Eurostat Director-General Mariana Kotzeva also shared with the attendees that raising the role of official statistics should be a major task for European statisticians, and Peer review is one of the tools to achieve that goal.
On 23 May, the Directors Generals planted a tree in the ‘Vladimir Zaimov’ park in Sofia. A capsule with a message from each of them to the future generations was planted at the roots of the tree.
