Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-10-22-Speech-1-200"
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"en.20071022.18.1-200"2
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"Mr President, let me first make two preliminary remarks. One is that, obviously, this subject of statistics is not a very sexy subject and is always placed at the end of the agenda. But what concerns me a bit is that there are politicians, MEPs and others who often like to complain about the provision of statistics. But then, if there is an opportunity to really improve something, they are not really actively involved in making the situation better.
The second remark is that I hope the Commissioner, at least, will appreciate that we are having this debate. Ms Bowles and I have said that, for us, it is not really necessary to have the debate. But it is important to underline the fact that you
done something on statistics, and that issue deserves some attention. So I hope you will not blame us for keeping you here at this hour.
Let me, then, congratulate you on the very concrete measures that you have taken vis-à-vis these problems with statistics, which have appeared several times in recent history. I know that you had to do this in the political room for manoeuvre that is granted to you by the Council, because we are aware that the European Commission cannot oblige Member States to establish independent statistical offices and prescribe to them how to work and how to deal with figures and data.
Ministers and MEPs who are the loudest and firmest in complaining about the lack of reliability of the figures of others are also the ones who do not want you to mix in their business and infringe on their autonomy and their way of dealing with statistics. This is the problem you have to deal with.
But, in this context, I think it was wise of you, Commissioner, to take a pragmatic, bottom-up approach, to focus on peer reviews and a code of practice, and to reform the governance structure of the statistics system by creating a new high level governance board, which Ms Bowles was speaking about, and by reforming the existing European Advisory Committee on Statistical Information in the Economic and Social Spheres (CEIES), which dealt with economic and social statistics, into a more streamlined and smaller advisory committee with a broader mandate.
In Ms Bowles’ and my report we have tried to improve this even more, and to reinforce and strengthen the approach of the Commission. At the same time, we have also made sure – in accordance with your proposal – that these two new bodies in the European family can function properly and with more independence from the Commission and Eurostat.
This may not have been completely in line with the Commission’s intentions; however, I want to express my appreciation to the Director-General of Eurostat for very generously accepting the fact that we took away his voting rights in the system that we designed.
I also want to express my appreciation to the Portuguese Presidency, and to Ms Cordeiro, for the efficient way she chaired the Council working group and negotiated with us a first reading agreement on this issue. This was a very efficient and very time- and bureaucracy-saving procedure. So, Mr Hans-Peter Martin, who has also asked for the floor, can see an example of how we can deal in a very efficient way with this type of co-decision procedure.
Let me very briefly give some of the elements of the statistical board, which I will do in writing. If you read the dossier, you can find where we made the changes, so I will not repeat this here but will stick to my wish that these two bodies will really bring some consciousness and some improvement in the way the statistics systems function, and will help us to really have reliable figures and base our economic activities on reliable data."@en1
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