Commission Decision of 17 September 2012 on Eurostat (2012/504/EU)

Article 6 Tasks of Eurostat

1. Eurostat shall be in charge of the development, production and dissemination of European statistics.

To this end, Eurostat shall, in particular:

(a) collect and aggregate the statistical information necessary to compile European statistics;

(b) develop and promote statistical standards, methods and procedures;

(c) steer the European Statistical System, strengthen cooperation among its partners, and ensure its leading role in official statistics worldwide;

(d) cooperate with international organisations and third countries in order to facilitate the comparability of European statistics with statistics produced in other statistical systems and, where appropriate, support third countries in the improvement of their statistical systems.

2. Eurostat shall ensure that European statistics are made accessible to all users in accordance with statistical principles, in particular the principles of professional independence, impartiality and statistical confidentiality.

In this respect, Eurostat shall provide the technical explanations and the support necessary for the use of European statistics and may use appropriate communication channels for the purpose of statistical news releases.

3. Eurostat shall ensure cooperation and regular constructive dialogue with other services of the Commission and, where necessary, with data providers with a view to taking into account user needs, relevant policy developments and other initiatives. To this end, those Commission services that are potential users of specific European statistics shall be informed and involved from an early stage in the development of new or changed statistics, among other things in order to understand the potential policy implications of new or changed statistical methods, standards and definitions.

4. Eurostat shall coordinate the development and production of other statistics. For that purpose, it shall:

(a) optimise the use of existing information that can be used for statistical purposes, in order to ensure quality and minimise burden for respondents; Eurostat shall invite any service of the Commission concerned to contribute for that purpose;

(b) be informed by all services of the Commission about the scope and quality characteristics of statistics produced by them, about significant changes in the methodology for the production of statistics, and about new data collections planned;

(c) provide guidance, appropriate training and expert services to other Commission services necessary for the development and production of other statistics, subject to available resources.