Director General of Eurostat is visiting Estonia

During the meeting, Walter Radermacher and Andres Oopkaup, the Director General of Statistics Estonia, will discuss the expected impact of the modernisation plan Vision 2020 of the European Statistical System on the statistical systems of the Member States, the amending Regulation on European statistics, which entered into force in June 2015, and the results of the 2015 peer review of the Estonian statistical system.

Radermacher noted that statistics play a decisive and continually growing role in today’s society. “Independent, impartial and timely data have become a solid part of democracy in Europe. And the demand for statistics is growing,” he explained. Radermacher said that information requests cover a large area – including data on relatively new domains, such as globalisation, well-being, and climate change. “The recent financial and economic crisis has also highlighted the need for reliable and trustworthy statistics for the proper functioning of EU economic governance,” said Radermacher. “In this context, it is vitally important to realise that only European statistics, as produced and released by the national statistical authorities and Eurostat – official data producers – stand for the highest quality of statistical information. Our statistics are based on jointly agreed principles, standards, and methodologies, which differentiates them from other data available on the Internet today,” he emphasised.

Radermacher noted with appreciation that the Estonian statistical system is at a comparable level with the best statistical offices of the European Union. “At the same time, the peer review carried out in the spring identified as the main shortcoming the fact that, at the current level of funding, Estonia has not been able to fulfil all of its obligations to the European Union,” Radermacher said.

Andres Oopkaup agreed that, even though the Member States have revised the statistical programme of the European Union systematically and endeavoured to find statistical actions which could be excluded, the consumers have decisively rejected most of the reduction proposals and so the volume of the statistical programme has increased instead. “It is impossible to cope with the increased needs by only increasing effectiveness,” Oopkaup noted. “Statistics have become very knowledge-intensive and increasingly dependent on IT, therefore the qualifications of statisticians are becoming more and more important,” stated Oopkaup. “In Estonia as well, it is necessary to turn the decision-makers’ attention to the value of national statistics and the fact that producing high-quality information does not come cheap,” he added.

During his visit, the Director General of Eurostat will meet Sven Sester, the Minister of Finance.

In the afternoon, Walter Radermacher will deliver a public lecture at Statistics Estonia to the representatives and analysts of ministries, and the Members of the Statistical Council on the topic World too fast, too furious: How to produce quality statistics and turn it to one's advantage.

Walter Radermacher has been the Director General of Eurostat since 2008. Before that, he was the Director General of the Statistical Office of Germany. The Director General last visited Estonia in 2009.