On 11 and 12 September 2025, the National Statistical Institute of Bulgaria in cooperation with DG Eurostat organized a high-level conference on theme “EU Enlargement: The role of Comparable and Reliable Official Statistics”. The two-day event organized on the occasion of the 145th anniversary of Bulgarian statistics was attended by the Directors-General and Presidents of the national statistical offices from Southeast Europe, the Director-General of Eurostat Mariana Kotzeva, PhD and representatives of UNFPA’s Regional Office for Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
The President of the National Statistical Institute of Bulgaria, Assoc. Prof. Atanas Atanasov, PhD opened the conference and noted that reliable and independent statistics are the cornerstone of evidence-based policymaking and and provide the main tools that politicians, businesses, researchers and citizens need to take informed decisions.
“For EU candidate countries, aligning their national statistical systems with the European Statistical System is a crucial part of the accession process – a step that enables mutual trust, ensures policy coherence, and supports long-term development”, he pointed out. “This High-level Conference offers a unique platform for open and constructive dialogue, fostering the exchange of knowledge, experiences, and lessons learned. Participants will have the opportunity to discuss current challenges they are facing, share innovative approaches and successful outcomes”, Assoc. Prof. Atanasov concluded.
In her address to the participants, the Director-General of Eurostat Mariana Kotzeva, PhD highlighted the importance of the fact that in the process of accession to the European Union the first negotiation chapter that countries such as Bulgaria and Croatia closed was precisely the one on “Statistics”, and now a similar trend is observed in the new candidate countries. She noted that she is proud to come from the region and is glad that EU enlargement is also progressing Southeast.
The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Bulgaria Nikolay Pavlov also welcomed the heads of statistical offices and highlighted the importance of statistical information for the successful functioning of both individual countries and the European Union as a whole.
The key note speaker of the conference – Mathieu Bousquet, Director of “Directorate A: Enlargement Coordination, Strategy & Investments”, DG ENEST joined online and gave specific guidelines for each of the candidate countries to improve the work on the commitments made.
The aim of the conference was to bring together Directors-General of the NSIs of EU candidate countries and potential candidate and EU member states as well as representatives of Eurostat, to discuss the priority areas where candidate countries need to better align themselves with the European Statistical System. They had the opportunity to share what problems and obstacles they face in the various statistical domains and exchange solutions that they have been implementing, while the EU member states shared their experience and good practices acquired during the EU accession process. The participants discussed various issues related to the main challenges on the path to EU accession in the field of statistics, how to more effectively communicate statistical data “with users for users”, the use of new data sources and non-traditional methods for the production of statistical information, and the ESS Peer Review as a tool for improving the national statistical systems.
The conference is part of the official calendar of the 4th Bulgarian Chairmanship-in-office of the South-East European Cooperation Process (SEECP) from 1 July 2025 until 30 June 2026 and included a special SEECP dedicated session, during which opportunities for further strengthening the traditionally good cooperation between the national statistical institutes in the Southeast Europe Region through various joint initiatives was discussed.
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