Eurostat

Eurostat (official name: the Statistical Office of the European Communities ) is the statistical service of the European commission. It has as a role to produce the official statistics of the European Union, in particular while collecting and by incorporating harmonized data coming from the national institutes of statistics.

Its seat is with Luxembourg with the Kirchberg.

History

Eurostat started to function in 1953 to meet the needs for ECSC: article 47 of the treaty authorized the community to collect statistics, essential to its good walk. Starting from 1958, Eurostat becomes one of the three services shared by ECSC, the EEC and Euratom.

Function

Eurostat is charged to provide reliable statistical data at community level and thus to give to the institutions the indications to evaluate the situation and to make necessary decisions with the operation of the European Union. Eurostat attempts to harmonize the statistical definitions and measuring instruments between the Member States.

Nevertheless, only it is not a question to offer a source of elements for the community agencies, but also to publish this information and to diffuse them widely.

Eurostat takes seat within two European structures:

the Statistical Système European ( SE ), to which also belong of the banks, the statistical institutes or of the organizations which collect information in all the Europe (of which the Norway, the Iceland and the Suisse).
the Committee of the monetary, financial statistics of balance of payments in which find also the national central banks, the European Central bank and Head office of the Economic affairs and financial of the European commission.

Work

Methodology

Eurostat collects the data collected in the Member States (or third countries, like the Suisse or the Japan, certain sectors) by the national statistical institutes. Particularly centered on the utility of its publications, Eurostat introduced a unified Méthodologie which makes it possible to compare the indicators of the various countries.

The SE , to which belonged Eurostat, cooperates also actively with OECD or the the IMF.

Activities

Eurostat works mainly on the fields of competence of the Community Politique (those being strongly extended, Eurostat analyzes practically all listed information)

It is divided into nine general topics

Statistiques - in which are included the regional statistics;
economy and Finance S ;
population and social conditions ;
Industry, trade and services ;
Agriculture and fishing ;
foreign trade - public purses (Balance of payments);
Transport S ;
Environment and energy ;
Sciences and Technology .

Every five years, Eurostat develops a statistical program which targets one or more sectors for thorough analyzes and rich publications: from 2003 to 2007 the program is centered on the

essential Indicateurs on widening;
statistical on the stability pact and of growth;
given essential on the job market, the environment, the services and the living conditions;
indications on the structure of the EU;

This program is developed in partnership with the institutions which require certain precise statistics.

Products

For the diffusion of its analyzes, just like to collect the data on the ground, Eurostat is pressed on partners in each country (in France, for example, the partner is INSEE).

Publications

Eurostat proposes each year the following products:

the directory of Eurostat - the totality of the analyzed data (available in printed version and CD-ROM);
statistical in short - main part of the statistics;
eurostatistic - analyzes economic and social;
social portrait of Europe - social situation of the Member States;
economic accounts of the European Union - macro-economic data as the balance of payments;
panorama of the European Union .

On its site Eurostat proposes the purchase of all the products quoted above, but also the remote loading of the accessible statistics individually, just like of the statistical of the week .

Databases

Eurostat has the greatest base of data concerning the European statistics:

New Cronos - hundred million data on the Member States (and partners);
Comext - statistical on the trade will intra and extra-community;
Regio - socio-economic data by areas;
Europroms - database on the industrial products.

These databases can be exploited for a personalized publication (for example, Data Shop Paris proposes this kind of orders)

Internal organization

Eurostat is divided into six directions (A-F):

Resources ;
statistical methodologies and tools ;
statistical economic and monetary ;
statistical of the interior market, employment and social affairs ;
statistical agriculture, fishing, structural bases and environment ;
statistical of the foreign relations .

Each direction comprises subdirectorates with coordinators (E1, F3 etc)

See too

External bonds

Official site
historical Document very rich in information
All Europe: the French gate on the European questions

Random links: