Edward Scicluna appointed as European statistical governance rapporteur

Member of European Parliament Edward Scicluna has been appointed as Rapporteur for the European Parliament. Scicluna, who is Vice-Chairman of the Parliament's Economic committee, will include the Parliament's recommendations on seeking agreement on a quality management framework for EU statistics related to the economic governance package.

“The crisis in Greece and elsewhere in the eurozone was partly caused by poor quality, and in some cases fraudulent, economic statistics. Now that we have agreed to have greater EU level oversight and surveillance of fiscal policy it is important to work out how this will operate in practice,” Scicluna said.

The MEP argued that despite all the months working on economic governance, without a reliable statistical data the 'six pack' would not work. “This goes for the entire field of European economic policy,” he said.

Scicluna also started work as the Socialist and Democrat group spokesman on legislation on the European system of Accounts (ESA). This regulation, which will apply to all EU countries, will be negotiated between MEPs and government ministers between now and early 2012.