The recent financial crisis has led to official statistics playing an ever increasing role in our societies and governments. There has been a greater need for statistics to monitor the effects of the crisis, however, at the same time, National Statistical Institutes (NSIs) have seen their budgets reduced as public spending bears the brunt of governments' efforts to balance the books. As a consequence the NSIs have become more focussed on internal issues, as opposed to cooperation. In the paper the authors will analyse the implications of the financial crisis in the statistical work within the European Statistical System (ESS) as well as in its statistical cooperation relations outside the EU.

Keywords: Financial crisis; Statistical cooperation; European statistical system

Biography: Pieter Everaers (56) is Director for External Cooperation, Communication and Key Indicators at Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities, since April 2009. He is responsible for the dissemination of EU statistical information the technical cooperation of Eurostat with European and non European Third Countries and cooperation with International Organisations. Previous to his current position, he held successive posts within DG Eurostat: Director of Agricultural and Environment statistics and Statistical Cooperation, Director of External Relations Statistics (2004 to 2006) and Director of Business Statistics (for a period of nine months). He joined Eurostat in May 2004, after 20 years at Statistics Netherlands (CBS) where he ultimately held the post of Director of Social and Spatial Statistics (2000-2004). He has a PhD in Spatial Sciences at the University of Utrecht and originally trained in Human Geography and Mathematical Sociology.