In the same way that we summarise our achievements at the end of the year, we would like to look back at what has been achieved in the last six months during our Presidency of the Council Working Party on Statistics (CWPS). We can proudly say that the Presidency Team of the Czech Statistical Office (CZSO) performed its task successfully. The President of the CZSO chaired in total six meetings of the CWPS. Six informal meetings were held as well as numerous bilateral and multilateral meetings. The Czech Presidency also undertook several written consultations.
In terms of legislative proposals, three were discussed during the Czech Presidency, namely the Proposal for a Regulation on Statistics on Agricultural Input and Output (SAIO), the Proposal for a Regulation amending the European System of Accounts (ESA 2010) and the Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EU) No 691/2011 as regards introducing new environmental economic accounts modules (EEA).
The SAIO proposal was reviewed by jurist-linguists during the Czech Presidency. The European Parliament adopted a legislative resolution on this proposal in the first reading. It was subsequently adopted by the Special Committee on Agriculture and the ECOFIN Council. The last step was the publication in the Official Journal of the EU on 7 December, making the proposal an official legal act.
There was a significant breakthrough in the discussion of the draft revision of the ESA 2010. The CZSO took over the proposal from the French Presidency at the stage of reaching a general approach of the Council. After a series of informal negotiations, the Czech Presidency Team managed to reach a compromise already at the first political trilogue. Subsequently, the compromise was agreed by the majority of Member States at the CWPS and approved at COREPER II on 30 November.
The most discussed proposal at the meetings of the CWPS under the Czech Presidency was the EEA proposal. The Czech Presidency Team finally managed to reach a compromise between the Member States and presented a final compromise proposal to the COREPER that approved it at its meeting on 20 December.
The Czech Presidency also successfully organized the High-Level Meeting on the future of statistics, which took place on 26 and 27 September at the premises of the Congress Centre of the Czech National Bank. Over 30 Directors-General/Presidents of European statistical offices and Eurostat took part in this event.
However, nothing would have been possible without the cooperation of all the interested parties which we greatly appreciate. Therefore, we would like to express our gratitude to all of you for your constructive approach over the last six months and the support that you have provided to us. It was a great privilege to chair the CWPS meetings and be part of shaping future development in this area. We also wish our Swedish colleagues a lot of success into the following six months.
On Friday, 16 December 2022 in Prague, President of the Czech Statistical Office Marek Rojíček handed over the Presidency “baton” to Joakim Stymne, Director General of the Statistics Sweden. This act symbolically brings to an end the Czech Presidency of the Council Working Party on Statistics. From 1 January 2023, the Working Party will be presided over by Statistics Sweden.
President Marek Rojíček thanked the Swedish Presidency Team for their constructive cooperation over the last six intense months. He also wished them every success for the first half of 2023, and he stressed that he and his team stand ready to assist the Swedish team at any point during their Presidency.
