The position of the Council at first reading with a view to the adoption of a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics resulted in a compromise with the aim of addressing the principal concerns of the Council, the European Parliament and the Commission.
The compromise reached at the trialogue on 3 December 2014 contains the following elements:
immediately after being appointed, the Director-General of Eurostat will appear before the European Parliament;
· the head of each National Statistical Institute (NSI), being professionally independent, must be appointed solely on the basis of their professional qualifications. At recruitment, equal opportunities for women and men will be taken into consideration;
· the relationship between the European Statistical System (ESS) and the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) has been clarified. The compromise provides that the ESS and the ESCB are to cooperate closely, as equal partners. The national authorities will decide the roles to be assigned to the National Statistical Institute and to the National Central Bank (NCB) at national level;
· inspection visits within Member States will be possible to the extent permitted by the Treaties, and then only where sectoral legislation provides a legal basis for such initiatives.
· the "Commitment on Confidence in Statistics" has been clarified.