The European Statistical System

The ESS consists of the 28 EU countries and the four EFTA countries. Norway's participation in the European statistical cooperation is part of the EEA Agreement. The ESS has a dedicated website for administrative and institutional information. Statistics from the ESS area are published on the Eurostat website.

Eurostat chairs the ESS cooperation and has a leading role in the efforts to develop comparable statistics across borders. They ensure that comparable European statistics, produced according to certain quality standards, are published and made available for the users. Eurostat compiles and performs quality checks on national statistics collected and reported by the national statistics producers.

Norway committed through the EEA Agreement

Through the EEA Agreement, Norway is required to report statistics in line with European guidelines, according to legal acts, for most statistical areas. In return, Eurostat publishes Norwegian statistics for all relevant areas.

Statistics Norway and other Norwegian producers of European statistics are well integrated into the ESS and participate on a nearly equal footing with EU countries in workgroup and committee meetings organised by Eurostat.

The ESS Committee

The ESS Committee, where the directors of the member states meet, is particularly important for the statistical cooperation in the EU/EEA. Issues of special significance to the development and production of European statistics are discussed with Chief Statisticians in the NSIs and the management of Eurostat, and priorities are set in the annual European statistical programme.