The European Statistical System (ESS) peer review visit to Cyprus will take place from 6 to 10 March 2023. According to aν announcement by the Statistical Service, the aim of the peer review is to assess the compliance of the National Statistical System (NSS) of Cyprus with the principles of the European Statistics Code of Practice (CoP).

Statistical authorities in all the other EU Member States and EFTA countries, as well as Eurostat are subject to peer reviews scheduled to take place during the period 2021 to 2023. According to the Statistical Service, the peer reviews are conducted by teams of independent experts following a common methodology.

The process includes the completion of a self-assessment questionnaire by the statistical authorities, followed by a 4-5 day visit of the experts, who provide a final report. In addition to assessing the compliance of the authorities with the European Statistics Code of Practice, the peer review reports put forward future oriented recommendations to further improve and develop the performance of national statistical systems and Eurostat.

At the same time, they should stimulate government authorities to support the implementation of these recommendations. Each National Statistical Institute, and Eurostat, then develops an action plan for addressing the peer review recommendations. Both the final reports and the accompanying action plans are being published on Eurostat’s website.

The development, production and dissemination of European official statistics are based on strong statistical principles laid down in the governing framework and further elaborated in the principles of the European Statistics Code of Practice.

"The implementation of these principles is essential for the high quality of European statistics and has been the subject of regular monitoring, which is done notably through the ESS peer reviews. This third round of ESS peer reviews will be a key moment for the development of the ESS. It provides a further opportunity to demonstrate that the ESS is a principle-based system with effective monitoring mechanisms underpinning the value of European statistics" the Statistical Service notes.