The European Statistical System

The ESS covers the 27 EU member states and the 4 EFTA countries. Norway's participation in the European statistical cooperation is secured through the EEA Agreement. The ESS has its own website, which primarily contains administrative and institutional information.

Eurostat heads the cooperation

Eurostat has the central function in the cooperation and heads the effort to develop statistics across borders. Eurostat ensures that harmonised European statistics of a high quality are published and made available. Eurostat does not collect statistics from respondents, but compiles and quality controls national statistics that are collected and reported by the national statistics producers.

Norway has obligation under EEA Agreement

Through the EEA Agreement, Norway is obliged to report statistics in line with European guidelines and legislation for most statistical areas. Eurostat has an obligation to publish Norwegian data on an equal footing with EU member states for areas relevant to the EEA, such as the single European market.

Statistics Norway and other Norwegian producers of European statistics are well integrated into the ESS, and participate on an equal footing with EU member states in work group and committee meetings organised by Eurostat - with the exception of voting in legislative proceedings.

ESS Committee crucial to the cooperation

The European Statistical System Committee (ESSC), where the directors for the member states meet, is particularly important for the cooperation. The ESSC, chaired by Eurostat, discusses issues that are central to the development and production of European statistics, such as priorities in the annual European statistical programme, response burden and cost efficiency, confidentiality, guidelines for the production of statistics etc.