Presidency
& TRIO Programme

Presidency Programme: July to December 2016

The Netherlands, Slovakia and Malta constitute the Presidency Trio for the eighteen months from 1 January 2016 to 30 June 2017. Slovakia will hold the Presidency in the second half of 2016.

In the field of European statistics, the three Presidencies will focus on provision of high quality and relevant European statistics produced in accordance with Regulation (EC) 223/2009 on European statistics and guided by the European Statistics Code of Practice. Moreover, the Trio will encourage initiatives underpinning the implementation of the Vision 2020, which focuses on modernisation and strengthening of European Statistical System in the area of developments in data collection, globalisation, reduction of production costs, and monitoring societal development. In encouraging these initiatives, the Trio will take into consideration that the key EU principles of subsidiarity and proportionality must always be respected, and that the investment costs of implementing Vision 2020 may not be excessive.

The main lines of the Slovak programme are set out in in the Trio Presidency Programme. In order to achieve the targets set out in this programme, the Slovak Presidency will pay special attention to strengthening the confidence in European statistics, harmonisation, as well as the reduction of production costs and response burden. The Slovak Presidency will build its agenda on the remarkable progress achieved by the Dutch Presidency and other preceding Presidencies.

Pending legislative dossiers

The work will be continued to complete adoption and publication procedure of the proposals for Regulations on:

• Community statistics concerning balance of payments, international trade in services and foreign direct investment,
• statistics of goods transport by inland waterways,
• rail transport statistics,
• Community statistics relating to external trade with non-member countries.

The work at Council and also at European Parliament level will be continued based on achivement of the Dutch Presidency and hopefully finalised on the proposal for Regulation on:

• electricity and natural gas price statistics, repealing Council Directive 2008/92/EC.

New legislative dossiers

In addition, two new legislative proposals are expected to be adopted by the Commission during the Slovak Presidency:

• the extension of the European statistical programme 2013-2017 for the period 2018-2020 to comply with the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 2014-2020,
• a common framework for European statistics relating to persons and households, based on data at individual level collected by samples (IESS).