The SSO participated in the meeting of the Statistical Cooperation Group in Ankara

The delegation of the State Statistical Office (SSO), led by the Director General, Dr. Dejan Stankov, participated in the annual meeting of the Policy Group on Statistical Cooperation (PGSC), organized by Eurostat and hosted by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), taking place on 24th and 25th September, in Ankara, Türkiye.
The two-day meeting gathered representatives of Eurostat, the European Commission, and  National Statistical Institutes from the enlargement countries to discuss the strategic priorities and developments in the European Statistical System (ESS).
The agenda focused on a wide range of topics crucial for the further alignment of enlargement countries with the EU statistical acquis, including:
•    Developments in Eurostat and the ESS, and the role of statistics in the EU enlargement process;
•    Implementation of the revised Regulation (EC) No 223/2009, with emphasis on data stewardship and access to privately held data;
•    Progress and challenges in ensuring the availability, production, and dissemination of data required by the acquis;
•    National plans of enlargement countries to comply with EU statistical requirements;
•    Good practices in communication of official statistics and recent developments in national statistical systems.
•    Strategy for statistical cooperation with enlargement countries for the period 2028–2034
•    Latest experiences from peer reviews, which provide valuable lessons for reinforcing institutional quality and trust in official statistics. 
The participation of the SSO delegation in this meeting reaffirmed SSO’s strong commitment to the European integration process, by aligning the statistical system with EU standards and actively contributing to the dialogue on the future of statistical cooperation.