Priorities of the Spanish, Belgium and Hungarian Presidencies
The Spanish, Belgium and Hungarian Presidencies (trio Presidency) will promote the implementation of the European Code of Practice, in particular, the quality improvement, reliability and transparency of the statistical production.
Following the Council objective of reducing up to 25% the administrative burden of the enterprises for 2012, the trio will encourage policies with the objective to reduce the burden on the respondents and improve the cost-benefit balance, while meeting the statistical information requests from statistical users. To achieve this goal, such policies should be focused in the increase of the use of information and communication technologies tools. In this line, it is specially relevant the promotion of enterprises data collection systems based on standards that automated the extraction of statistical data from the management systems (XBRL and its development), and to give impetus to the use of electronic exchange systems for statistical data and complementary information in order to improve the automated treatment by users and institutions (SDMX and its development).
Finally, the facilitation of the electronic exchange of statistical data should be accompanied by the implementation of a renewed legal framework concerning statistical confidentiality and by the development of new methodological and technological solutions regarding the statistical disclosure control, as well as accessibility of statistical data by the general public and the research community.
Priorities and objectives of the Spanish Presidency
The 18-month programme of the Spanish, Belgium and Hungarian Presidencies determines the Spanish Presidency's priorities. Particularly, the Spanish Presidency will continue working in order to promote the implementation of the Code of Practice and to improve the quality, reliability and transparency of the statistical products and processes. It will support policies aimed to meet the needs for statistical information within the framework of the reduction of burden of the reporting units and to improve cost-effectiveness, promoting the use of the new information and communication technologies to achieve the above purposes. During this period we will try to boost the production of official statistics giving attention to the statistical information demands.
Finally, the Spanish Presidency agenda in Community statistics will be build on the work already done by the former Presidencies striving to complete the pending statistical legal acts and to achieve progress on the new issues arriving at the Council.
