Statistical Office Of The European Communities (EUROSTAT)
Eurostat is the statistical office of the European Union, situated in Luxembourg. Its mission is to be the leading provider of high quality statistics on Europe.
It therefore publishes official, harmonised statistics on the European Union (EU) and the euro area which offer an objective portrayal of social and economic trends. These statistics are available for EU Member States, and are sometimes broken down by region, thus enabling comparisons between countries or regions. Furthermore, some of the indicators are published for candidate countries and other non-member countries.
Eurostat was established in 1953 to meet the requirements of the Coal and Steel Community. Over the years its task has broadened and when the European Community was founded in 1958 it became a Directorate-General (DG) of the European Commission. Eurostat’s key role is to supply statistics at European level to other DGs and supply the Commission and other European Institutions with data, so they can define, implement and analyse Community policies.
Eurostat collects data from national statistical institutes: the statistics are harmonised according to Europe-wide methodologies. Eurostat’s data are comparable because they are based on a common statistical language that embraces concepts, methods, definitions, technical standards and infrastructures.
Eurostat releases a wide range of publications, all of which are free of charge on its website in electronic format, while Eurostat’s website itself allows users to freely access EU statistics on-line.
Today, Eurostat is the synonym for a comprehensive and high-quality information service providing statistical data about and for the European Union. Using it means having a finger on the pulse of current social, economic, and environmental developments in Europe. The result is that Eurostat offers a whole range of important and interesting data that governments, businesses, the education sector, journalists and the public can use for their work and daily life
Statistical Office of the European Communities (EUROSTAT)
BECH Building, 5, rue Alphonse Weicker, L-2721 Luxembourg