Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-07-11-Speech-3-464"
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"Madam President, I would like to thank Mr Becsey for his report. I would like to thank him twice, firstly as the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee for Regional Development, and secondly as a representative of my political group.
One more question of a social nature. Changes associated with large-scale migration, particularly of workers, are taking place before our very eyes. How does this affect the social situation and families? And we should not forget either that the high level of reliability of statistical data is always dependent on the reliability of the sources of information, which in turn requires the reliability and frequently the anonymity of the original data.
To finish, I would like to express my hope that the Community statistical programme will serve the fundamental aims of the European Union well. The attitude of Eurostat, and also of the Polish Central Statistical Office convince me of this. I hope that this is so.
I will not dwell on the definition of statistics. I will only say that it is a science that assesses phenomena and processes of a mass nature in a quantitative way. Its aim is to assess the rules governing these phenomena and quantifying them. Statistics also make it possible to summarise the results of analyses and to evaluate the accuracy and reliability of the results. I say this for good reason, as statistical data are often the basis for important decisions taken both at local and regional as well as at national, European and even world level.
It is therefore a good thing that we have a community statistical programme for the years 2008-2012. The realistic and responsible preparation of statistical data is exceptionally valuable. Obtaining them, therefore, involves costs. I would therefore like to ask the Commissioner whether our ambitious programme for the next five years has sufficient financial backing.
We are undertaking a task that will cover 27 Member States with differing degrees of experience in this sensitive area. So let me ask a second question: what steps have been taken to secure the best possible coordination in statistical analysis? The Commissioner was kind enough to emphasise the importance of the Committee on Regional Development’s opinion, and I would like to thank her for this flattering assessment.
To go on to regional issues: in the 2007-2013 Perspective the European Union allocated over one-third of its budget to regional policy in the broad sense of the word, thereby implementing the principle of cohesion and solidarity between regions with very differing levels of prosperity. This money was European taxpayers’ money, which should under no circumstances be squandered. That is why we need completely impartial, sufficiently comprehensive and reliable methods of monitoring the implementation of structural policy. Do we have such methods? They involve collating and processing statistical data, both at Community level, at Member State level and at regional and lower, at local level.
The nature of the data must be comparable, both with data recorded outside the European Union and with the data recorded within it, as we often compare ourselves with other countries. The implementation of short-term or temporary objectives or technical problems have resulted in temporary lapses in compiling statistical data, all with drastic results.
Statistical analyses of regions are based on NUTS units. The question this raises is does this separation always result in equally reliable data? I have my reservations in particular of situations where there is a large gap between the development level and the prosperity of a regional capital and the rest of the area.
Another question I would like to raise is that of development level indexes for countries or regions: is the per capita GDP enough, what weighting should be given to unemployment levels, how can quality of life in a particular area be measured, etc. These are important issues, and I know that there are no simple solutions.
We often speak of innovation in this House. So we need to have reliable data on education, science, research and innovation. The question this raises is what methods should be used to compare data that often come from unofficial sources? How can we define the dynamics of change?"@en1
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