Projects funded by the European Union

Statistics Estonia is carrying out the project "Development of the forestry, environmental subsidies and ecosystem accounts“ co-funded by the European Commission. The amount of the grant is 328,180.45 euros.

The project focuses on the activities to produce accounts for the planned three new modules of the regulation amending Regulation (EU) 691/2011 on European environmental accounts. The project aims to develop these new environmental accounts further in Estonia.

Namely, it is foreseen to produce estimates for forest accounts and for environmental subsidies and similar transfers accounts for the year 2022, which would be the first reporting year according to the Eurostat proposal for amending Regulation (EU) 691/2011 on European environmental accounts.

For forest accounts and for environmental subsidies and similar transfers accounts, it is necessary to further investigate data sources and develop methods to compile and report data on the specified statistical domains, which still needs further clarification. 

In the area of ecosystem accounts, the refinement of the methods and testing of the methodologies proposed by Eurostat is foreseen. The condition account and account in monetary terms will be developed further.

The project lasts from 30 June 2023 to 29 December 2024.

Statistics Estonia is carrying out the project co-funded by the European Commission "Income and living conditions domain – SILC statistical infrastructure under IESS – SILC 2024 6-yearly variables on Access to services – Pilot study 2023 Infra-annual data collection". The amount of the grant is 104,184.83 euros.

Statistics Estonia (SE) conducts the annual Estonian Social Survey, which is the basis for preparing EU-SILC microdata (Estonian EU-SILC). In order to ensure conformity between statistics collected by different EU Member States, new regulations of the Integrated European Social Statistics (IESS) 2021 are being implemented.

According to the IESS regulation, the NSIs, Statistics Estonia among them, are required to adopt multi-annual rolling planning on specific topics and subjects requested by policy users. One of the objectives of this project is to implement the 2024 EU-SILC modules according to the Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) of 3 November 2022 supplementing Regulation (EU) 2019/1700 of the European Parliament and of the Council by specifying the number and the title of the variables in the income and living conditions domain on access to services.

The modules will be a part of the Estonian Social Survey (Estonian EU-SILC).

The collected data are necessary for the Estonian Ministry of Social Affairs for policy-making, to get an overview to prepare development plans and projects in the relevant field of research, and to make informed decisions. All the collected data are comparable with other EU countries, which allows analysts and other data users to analyse the information on an international level. In addition, the mission of Statistics Estonia is to reflect the situation and changes in the society and offer information important for the demographic, social, economic and environmental development of Estonia.

Firstly, Statistics Estonia will conduct activities described under Objective 2 of the Call document – new/amended variables in the EU-SILC data collection 3-yearly module and the 6-yearly module on access to services for survey year 2024. Secondly, Statistics Estonia will conduct activities described under Objective 1 of the Call document – improvement of the longitudinal component in the EU-SILC data collection.

The project lasts from 1 June 2023 to 31 May 2025.

Statistics Estonia is carrying out the project "New compilation methods for intra-EU trade in goods statistics and experimental TEC statistics" co-funded by the European Commission. The amount of the grant is 135,739.57 euros.

The project consists of two sub-themes.

Theme 1: New compilation methods for intra-EU trade in goods statistics. In January 2022, Statistics Estonia implemented the microdata exchange (MDE) system and started receiving micro-data from other EU Member States. MDE represents the fundamental change and modernisation of the existing Intrastat system. The project will assess the quality of MDE data and will develop the methodology to compile imports statistics based fully on MDE data. Comparison of statistics compiled based on national data and based on data received from other Member States will be carried out to assess the impact on data quality and time series. Analysis will be carried out to determine whether it is feasible to compile imports statistics using MDE data and how it would affect data quality and burden. This project helps to solve any obstacles in the wider use of MDE data, develop the methodology and the implementation plan to achieve the goal that, in 2025, imports statistics are compiled based solely on MDE data.

Theme 2: Experimental TEC statistics. Statistics Estonia has been compiling TEC datasets on a regular basis, albeit with some issues with data quality and timeliness. In 2022, a new data compilation system for TEC data was implemented which reduces the manual workload and helps to ensure data quality. This project helps to turn more attention to TEC data and give it additional dimension. The proposal to link TEC data with gender indicators provides the possibility to compile completely new data about trade statistics by gender of the workforce of enterprises. The project explores this interesting and promising idea to give an additional dimension to TEC datasets and compile new indicators by linking existing datasets without the need for additional data collection. Other Member States can benefit by learning from the experience obtained and methodology developed.

The project lasts from 1 January 2023 to 30 June 2024.

Statistics Estonia is carrying out the project "Preparation for the NACE Rev. 2.1 implementation in Business Registers" co-funded by the European Commission. The amount of the grant is 52,709.87 euros.

The specific objectives of the project are:

• To prepare a clear national plan for the implementation of NACE Rev. 2.1. in the national statistical business register and for the provision of renewed register data to all parts of Statistics Estonia's information system that are linked with and/or use data of the business register.
• To analyse the populations of units in the business register in relation to different NACE Rev. 2.1 reclassification strategies and methods for resource assessment.
• To set up procedures and technical solutions for NACE Rev. 2.1. implementation in the national statistical business register.
• To define the reclassification strategy and methodology, to prepare the questionnaire and guidelines for conducting the dedicated survey and to conduct the survey.
• To analyse possible new administrative sources to be used for reclassification purposes.
• To recode the units in the national business register according to NACE Rev. 2.1.
• To define national versions of the NACE Rev. 2.1. classification, including the translation of explanatory notes into the national language available.

The implementation of the new NACE Rev. 2.1. will be one of main challenges for national statistical authorities in the coming years. This is a mandatory activity for all EU countries. It requires the reclassification of units in the business register and coordination among many statistical production units in the NSAs as well as with other authorities of the public national administration responsible for the collection of administrative data from businesses. The business register is the backbone for the production of all business statistics and part of social statistics. The implementation of the new NACE Rev. 2.1 in the business register will ensure that statistics produced on the basis of the NACE classification are comparable at the national, European and international level.

Translating the explanatory notes creates a good term base that can be used to translate further NACE index entries

The project lasts from 1 October 2023 to 31 March 2025.

Statistics Estonia is carrying out the project "Labour domain – LFS statistical infrastructure under IESS – LFS 2024 module – ICSE-18 testing“ co-funded by the European Commission. The amount of the grant is 135,174.82 euros.

The European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) is an important source of information on the situation and trends in the EU labour market. The module will be a part of the Estonian Labour Force Survey.

The main goal is to obtain reliable statistics regarding the Estonian labour market. Each year, a module is implemented within the Labour Force Survey. Obtaining this kind of data allows Estonia to get an overview of that topic in the context of the national labour market.

The Delegated Regulation (EU) 2020/256 establishing multi-annual rolling planning lists the topics to be collected from 2021 to 2028 for the eight-yearly variables and ad hoc subjects. In 2024, the ad hoc subjects are 'young people on the labour market’ and ‘educational attainment – details, including education interrupted or abandoned'. These data are important because they provide information about the situation of young people in terms of their participation in the labour market, and also about the effects of different educational paths on people's labour market situation.

If the Estonian Ministry of Social Affairs and the Ministry of Education and Research analyse the collected data, they can see which aspects of these fields need improvement. It is known that better education improves the situation of people in the labour market, but with this module we would get a data-driven background to this statement.

The Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/2180, specifying the detailed arrangements and content for the quality reports pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/1700 of the European Parliament and of the Council, states the quality criteria for ELFS. In order to comply with the criteria, several measures will be taken.

The project lasts from 1 July 2023 to 28 February 2026.

Statistics Estonia is carrying out the project "Improvements of Labour Market statistics collected from Businesses (LMB) in the context of the LMB Review“ co-funded by Eurostat. The amount of the grant is 113,899.33 euros.

The main objective of these work packages is the overall implementation of the new LMB legislation which covers the labour cost index, gender pay gap and job vacancies. As of now, the new regulations have not yet been confirmed, which results in the team not being able to refer to specific legislation.

The project helps us to implement new LCI variables and aggregates to quarterly and annual data. This gives us the opportunity to add the new variables and aggregates to our statistical system.

Due to the new legislation regarding the gender pay gap (GPG) statistics, the implementation of new methods for the calculation of the necessary variables is needed. Our aim is to use the method of modelling for the years when the structure of earnings survey is not carried out. The use of the model will enable us to lessen the burden on the labour market businesses.

Currently, the statistics about job vacancies are compiled using business survey data from economically active units (enterprises, institutions, organisations). The rate of job vacancies and the distribution of job vacancies by economic activity, county and type of owner are published quarterly. At the same time, there is a need to find and analyse new potential data sources for job vacancy statistics. The aim of the work package is to find ways to limit the response burden on enterprises but also give a more comprehensive overview of the situation in the labour market. Currently, the main users of the information (e.g. ministries and banks) use additional sources to the ones published by Statistics Estonia. Also, several beneficiaries have expressed the need for more timely and comprehensive statistics about labour demand.

The project lasts from 1 October 2023 to 28 February 2026.

Statistics Estonia is carrying out the project "Improvement and re-development of demography, migration and population and housing census statistics“ co-funded by the European Commission. The amount of the grant is 51.083,13 euros.

All activities in this project serve one key goal: to improve Statistics Estonia’s readiness for the new framework regulation on European statistics on population and housing (ESOP project). More specifically, the grant allows additional resources to be allocated for researching methodologies and new potential data sources with a focus on producing infra-annual statistics. Furthermore, this project addresses some shortcomings in the current IT system (e.g. lack of historic population data in the databases, lack of metadata) and helps to improve the production of Eurostat outputs (grid as well as cubes) to allow the timely transmission of the data.

The activities can be categorised into two broad themes – firstly, research and development of methodologies; and secondly, streamlining the production of statistics required by Eurostat.

The project lasts from 1 October 2023 to 30 November 2025.

Statistics Estonia is carrying out the European Commission, Eurostat co-funded project "Purchasing Power Parity Data Collection 2024". The amount of the grant is 72,351.58 euros.

The overall purpose of the Eurostat/OECD Purchasing Power Parities (PPP) programme is to provide users with high quality PPPs and related economic indicators. The action aims at ensuring the provision of high quality and comparable input data for the purpose of calculating PPPs.

The project lasts from 1 November 2023 to 28 February 2025.

Statistics Estonia is carrying out the Eurostat co-funded project "Modernisation of Agricultural statistics". The amount of the grant is 59,868 euros.

The general objective of the action is to develop and implement methods related to modernisation of agricultural statistics. The action enables to prepare for new requirements stemming from the Strategy of Agricultural Statistics for 2020+ and more specifically from SAIO, mainly crop and livestock statistics, but not only. Besides fulfilling new requirements, it is also important to modernise existing procedures to be more efficient and through it make room for new data needs. Therefore, it is necessary to adapt existing systems and make better use of available sources.

The project contributes to several priorities:

• Set up new statistical data collections linked to the greening of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), Farm to Fork strategy, Biodiversity strategy, challenges of the climate change and other important aspects. One of the important aims of the project is to try to fulfil new SAIO requirements mainly in the field of crop and livestock statistics but not only.
• Use as much as possible existing administrative registers and available data sources (several registers will be involved in the project, possibility to use expert estimations for early estimates will be studied).
• Try to integrate the use of on-farm records of the professional use of plant protection products in the agricultural statistics (through the initial co-operation with relevant partners).

The project lasts from 1 October 2022 to 30 September 2024.

Statistics Estonia is carrying out the project "Support for the implementation of harmonised data exchange standards for data covered by the EBS Regulation“ co-funded by European Commission, Eurostat. The amount of the grant is 64,564.62 euros.

The Regulation of European business statistics (EBS Regulation, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/search.html?scope=EURLEX&text=2019%2F2152&lang=et&type=quick&qid=1659526907395) provides a cross-cutting legal framework for the systematic collection, compilation, transmission and dissemination of European statistics related with the structure, economic activity, competitiveness, global transactions and performance of the European business sector. In order to allow to fully benefit from the harmonisation induced by the EBS Regulation and possibly cross-domain comparisons, the data exchange standards for all data sets required under this Regulation should be harmonised to the extent possible.

The present grant supports the implementation of harmonised data exchange standards for data covered by the EBS Regulation for multiple statistical areas (short term business statistics, country and regional level business statistics, statistics on international activities).

By the end of 2023, the new DSD (Data Structure Definition) must be implemented and new EDAMIS flows should be used for data transmission.

The project aim for Statistics Estonia is to introduce the SDMX standard for transmission of datasets to Eurostat. This would help to address the requirements of EU and satisfy the needs of users of statistics.

The project lasts from 1 January 2022 to 31 December 2023.

Statistics Estonia is carrying out the European Commission, Eurostat funded project "Integrated Farm Statistics". The amount of the grant is up to 150,000 euros.

The National Statistical Institutes (NSIs) and other national authorities as identified in Article 5 of Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 have to organize and implement the data collections in compliance with Regulation (EU) 2018/1091 on integrated farm statistics. The data collections aim to provide information on the structure of agricultural holdings (number of holdings, land use, livestock numbers, management, farm labour input) as well as on production methods, rural development methods, agro-environmental aspects etc.

The data collections are needed in order to provide the statistical knowledge base for the design, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and review of related policies, in particular the common agricultural policy (CAP).

The data can be collected by means of statistical survey, use of administrative data sources (e.g. the integrated administration and control system, the system for the identification and registration of bovine animals, the system for the identification and registration of ovine and caprine animals, organic farming register, administrative sources associated with specific rural development measures) or use of other available sources, methods or innovative approaches.

The general objective of the action is to develop methodologies and implement data collection on integrated farm statistics.

The project lasts from 1 May 2022 to 31 December 2024.

Statistics Estonia is carrying out the project "Labour domain - LFS statistical infrastructure under IESS - LFS 2023 module - Improvements of Labour Market statistics collected from Businesses (LMB)" co-funded by Eurostat. The amount of the grant is 65,956.40 euros.

This module is the part of the national Labour Force Survey. The main goal is to obtain reliable statistics regarding Estonian labour market. Each year a module is implemented to Labour Force Survey. Obtaining this kind of data allows Estonia to get an overview of that topic in national labour market. The activities will take place in Estonia and is also the main country that will benefit from it, but as the same data are collected in other European Member States, all EU countries are beneficiaries indirectly as the data are comparable and can be drawn on an international level. The main interested parties of this data, what module pension and labour market participation contains, is Estonian Ministry of Social Affairs. They are able to analyse what needs improvement in this field. Statistical data and indicators are the backbone of responsible evidence based policies.

The project lasts from 1 July 2022 to 31 May 2024.

Statistics Estonia is carrying out the European Commission, Eurostat co-funded project "Purchasing Power Parity Data Collection 2023". The amount of the grant is 67,202.59 euros.

The overall purpose of the Eurostat/OECD Purchasing Power Parities (PPP) programme is to provide users with high quality PPPs and related economic indicators. The action aims at ensuring the provision of high quality and comparable input data for the purpose of calculating PPPs.

The project lasts from 1 November 2022 to 28 February 2024.

Statistics Estonia is carrying out the project co-funded by the European Commission "SILC statistical infrastructure under IESS – SILC 2023 module“. The amount of the grant is 113,336.15 euros.

Statistics Estonia conducts the annual Estonian Social Survey which is the basis for preparing EU-SILC microdata (Estonian EU-SILC). In order to ensure conformity between statistics collected by different EU Member States, new regulations of the Integrated European Social Statistics (IESS) 2021 are being implemented.

The general objective of the project is the implementation of the 2023 three- yearly module on 'labour market and housing' and the six-yearly module on 'intergenerational transmission of advantages and disadvantages, housing difficulties' as well as the ad hoc subject on 'energy efficiency/poverty' to be implemented in 2023. This is done in accordance with the Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2021/2052 of 24 November 2021, specifying technical items of data sets of the sample survey in the income and living conditions domain on labour market and housing, intergenerational transmission of advantages and disadvantages, housing difficulties, and the 2023 ad hoc subject on households' energy efficiency pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/1700 of the European Parliament and of the Council. The modules will be part of the Estonian Social Survey (Estonian EU-SILC).

The collected data are necessary for Estonian Ministry on Economic Affairs and Communication and the Ministry of Social Affairs for policy-making and to get an overview to prepare development plans and projects in the relevant fields of research and to make informed decisions. All the collected data are comparable with other EU countries, which allows analysts and other data users to analyse the information on the international level. In addition, the mission of Statistics Estonia is to reflect the situation and changes in the society and offer information important for the demographic, social, economic and environmental development of Estonia. 

The project lasts from 1 August 2022 to 31 March 2024.

Statistics Estonia is carrying out the European Commission, Eurostat funded project "Purchasing Power Parity Data Collection 2022". The amount of the grant is 62,965.49 euros.

The overall purpose of the Eurostat/OECD Purchasing Power Parities (PPP) programme is to provide users with high quality PPPs and related economic indicators. The action aims at ensuring the provision of high quality and comparable input data for the purpose of calculating PPPs.

The project lasted from 1 November 2021 to 28 February 2023.

Statistics Estonia is carrying out the project "Price Statistics" co-funded by European Commission, Eurostat. The amount of the grant is 201,730.62 euros.

The main goal of the project is to study the possibilities of improving the price collection by using scanner data instead of manually collected prices. The project pertained to the product categories known as „daily necessities“ comprising food, toiletries, etc. The use of scanner data provides an opportunity to improve the quality of weights, reduce the measurement errors, and thereby increase the overall quality of HIPC.

The project lasts from 1 March 2021 to 28 February 2024.