European Statistical System - ESS

The ESS is the partnership between the EU statistical authority, which is the Commission (Eurostat), the 'National Statistical Institutes' (NSIs), and 'Other National Authorities' (ONAs) in each EU country. These are responsible for the development, production, and dissemination of European statistics. This partnership also includes the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries.

Since the beginning of the European Community, it has been clear that policy decisions, planning, and implementation must be based on reliable and comparable statistics. To accomplish this, the European Statistical System (ESS) was built up gradually with the objective of providing objective of providing comparable statistics at EU level. The ESS guarantees that the European statistics produced in all Member States are reliable, follow common criteria and definitions and data are compiled in an appropriate way, so that they are always comparable between various countries of the EU.

Statistics in the Council of the EU

In the Council of the EU, informally also known as the Council, government ministers from each EU country meet to discuss, amend and adopt laws, and coordinate policies. The Council meets in nine different formations, depending on the issues under discussion. The ministers have the authority to commit their governments to the actions agreed on in the meetings. Due to its cross-cutting nature, statistics falls under the General Affairs Council (GAC). Together with the European Parliament, the Council of the EU is the main decision-making body of the EU.

Members: Government ministers from each EU country, according to the policy area to be discussed
President: Each EU country holds the presidency on a 6-month rotating basis