On 12 November, a bilateral meeting between Ukraine and the European Commission on Chapter 18, dedicated to statistics, was held in Luxembourg. The meeting was held as part of the official screening of Ukrainian legislation for compliance with EU law. This was the final chapter in the block of issues under Cluster 1, Fundamentals, which is key to the entire negotiation process.

Over the course of two days, the Ukrainian delegation, the vast majority of which were representatives of the State Statistics Service, presented to the European Commission and Eurostat the state of implementation of EU law in state statistical activities, the capacity of the Ukrainian state statistics authorities, methodology and data quality. The parties also discussed the expansion of the list of datasets that the State Statistics Service should transfer to Eurostat.

“Ukraine demonstrates every day that nothing can stop or slow us down on the way to achieving our strategic goal of membership in the European Union. I thank the negotiating teams for the high level of preparation and presentation of our country. We expect that the European Commission’s report on the results of the screening within Cluster 1 will allow us to open this cluster as soon as possible in 2025,” said Olha Stefanishyna, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration and Minister of Justice of Ukraine, chief negotiator, who took part in the meeting online.

According to her, a representative of the State Statistics Service is included in each of the negotiation groups, considering the importance of statistics for effective integration.

The statistical sector, which covers all spheres of economic and social life, should provide sets of reliable data that will further influence not only the macroeconomic state of the country but also the living conditions of citizens. For this reason, the statistics section is included in the fundamentals cluster.

“Despite the challenges posed by the war, the State Statistics Service has not only continued producing official statistics, but has also undertaken large-scale transformations towards EU membership. A fundamental step in this direction was the adoption of the Law of Ukraine ‘On Official Statistics’, which is designed to ensure the harmonisation of the Ukrainian statistical system with the European one. This law contains all the norms stipulated in the relevant EU regulations and also establishes the basic principles of official statistics in full compliance with the European Statistics Code of Practice,” said Ihor Werner, the Head of the State Statistics Service.

The first bilateral meeting took place in early July and was dedicated to public procurement. A total of 5 rounds were held, during which dozens of public authorities presented their achievements and further steps of transformation in the following areas: judiciary and fundamental rights; justice, freedom and security; economic criteria; functioning of democratic institutions; public administration reform; and financial control.

Next week, bilateral meetings will begin in Brussels under the second negotiating cluster, Internal Market, which will focus on free movement of goods, freedom of movement of workers, business and services, competition policy, corporate law, etc.

Background

During the official screening process, the European Commission, together with the EU candidate country, analyses the compliance of the candidate country’s national legislation with the relevant EU acquis.