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Soon, "EU governments [will be] obliged to commit to providing statistics that are correct," reports Romanian daily Adevărul. The European Commission, the Bucharest daily explains, wants to avoid a repetition of the Greek precedent and to ensure that member states provide reliable and independent statistical data.
For years, Athens posted budget deficits below their real level due to falsified statistics. European Commissioner for Taxation and Customs Union, Algirdas Šemeta, suggests revising national statistics to make them more credible. He also suggests that national statistics agencies should be independent and that their heads should be appointed on criteria other than political. According to the paper -
They will have to decide independently as concerns the development, the production and the dissemination of the statistics as well as the management of the work of the statistics agencies.
Each member state will have to adopt, "at the highest political level," a European Statistics Code of Practices, Adevărul explains. This document will be countersigned by the Commission and Eurostat will be responsible for making sure the commitments are respected. The demand for reliable, credible, evidence-based data is growing, in particular because of the need to coordinate economic policies in the EU.
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