1. The Community statistical authority, as designated by the Commission to develop, produce and disseminate European statistics, shall be referred to as ‘the Commission (Eurostat)’ in this Regulation.

2. At Community level, the Commission (Eurostat) shall ensure the production of European statistics according to established rules and statistical principles. In this respect, it shall have the sole responsibility for deciding on processes, statistical methods, standards and procedures, and on the content and timing of statistical releases.

3. Without prejudice to Article 5 of the Protocol on the Statute of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) and the European Central Bank, the Commission (Eurostat) shall coordinate the statistical activities of the institutions and bodies of the Community, in particular with a view to ensuring consistency and quality of the data and minimising reporting burden. To that end, the Commission (Eurostat) may invite any institution or body of the Community to consult or cooperate with it for the purpose of developing methods and systems for statistical purposes in their respective field of competence. Any of those institutions or bodies which propose to produce statistics shall consult the Commission (Eurostat) and take into account any recommendation that it may make to this effect.

Article 7

European Statistical System Committee

1. The European Statistical System Committee (ESS Committee) is hereby established. It shall provide professional guidance to the ESS for developing, producing and disseminating European statistics in line with the statistical principles set out in Article 2(1).

2. The ESS Committee shall be composed of the representatives of the NSIs who are national specialists for statistics. It shall be chaired by the Commission (Eurostat).

3. The ESS Committee shall adopt its rules of procedure, which shall reflect its tasks.

4. The ESS Committee shall be consulted by the Commission in regard to:

(a) the measures which the Commission intends to take for the development, production and dissemination of European statistics, their justification on a cost-effectiveness basis, the means and timetables for achieving them, the response burden on survey respondents;

(b) proposed developments and priorities in the European statistical programme;

(d) issues concerning statistical confidentiality;

(e) the further development of the Code of Practice; and

(f) any other question, in particular issues of methodology, arising from the establishment or implementation of statistical programmes that are raised by its Chair, either on its own initiative or at the request of a Member State.

Article 8

Cooperation with other bodies

The European Statistical Advisory Committee and the European Statistical Governance Advisory Board shall be consulted in accordance with their respective competence.

Article 9

Cooperation with the ESCB

To minimise the reporting burden and guarantee the coherence necessary to produce European statistics, the ESS and the ESCB shall cooperate closely, while complying with the statistical principles as set out in Article 2(1).