Of course, these challenges reinforce the importance of maintaining a long-term strategic vision that statistical systems should become more agile and flexible, fulling exploiting their currently under-used potential. Investment in basic statistical infrastructure hugely paid off during the pandemic, and official statisticians know better than anybody the value of reference datasets and granular data.
Access to privately-held datasets in the context of the European Strategy for Data, using the full potential of the existing European legislative framework for the exchange of confidential micro data, bringing existing business registers closer and EU-level data collection on the top 500 MNEs active in the EU are not just “nice to have”, but will crucially shape our future policy options.