On 17 June 2022, France officially handed over the Presidency of the EU Council in the field of statistics to Czech Republic. Representatives of the current Trio Presidency (France, Czech Republic, Sweden) and Eurostat contributed to the handover meeting held at INSEE premises in Montrouge.

INSEE presented the final report of its Presidency, i.e. the main progress achieved within the Council Working Party Statistics Group of the Council of the EU and the different methods used to achieve it (see presentation). At the end of the trilogue meetings, the French Presidency succeeded in reaching an agreement with the European Parliement on the new regulation on statistics on agricultural outputs and inputs (SAIO). Furthermore, following productive meetings of the Council Working Party on Statistics and various consultations with the Member States, a negotiating mandate for the ESA 2010 regulation on national accounts was adopted in the Permanent Representatives Committee (COREPER) on 29 June. INSEE has also actively participated in the work on the revision of Regulation 223/2009 currently underway and has been the voice of the European statistical community by writing, as Chair of the Council Working Party on Statistics, to the Chair of the Working Party on Telecommunications and Information Society to request that the Data Act take better account of the need to access private data for the production of public statistics.

Czech Republic and Sweden congratulated the French Presidency on its achievements and presented their respective work programmes. The main focus of the Czech programme for the second half of 2022 will be the conduct of the trilogue negotiations for the adoption of the ESA 2010 regulation and the negotiations on environmental accounts in the Council Working Party on Statistics. Sweden will also have a busy agenda with the planned publication by the Commission of very strategic texts in the first half of 2023 (including the new framework regulation on European population and housing statistics (ESOPH) and the revised regulation 223/2009). The Czech and Swedish Presidencies will seek to ensure that the revision of regulation 223/2009, which is currently being drafted, takes into account the specific needs of official statistics, in particular as regards access to private data.

The current Chair of the Council Working Party on Statistics, Jean-Luc Tavernier, handed over the Presidency of the group to Marek Rojicek, the incoming Czech President, and wished him every success in the coming months.