Remarks by Commissioner Dombrovskis at Eurostats General Assembly to mark World Statistics Day

Minister Margue, Director-General Kotzeva, dear colleagues.

Good afternoon.

I am very happy to return to Luxembourg and be with you today, as we gather to mark both Eurostats annual general assembly and World Statistics Day.

Let me start with a “thank you” for all of your hard work.

Eurostat is not simply the EUs statistical office, it is the very foundation of the EUs evidence-based policymaking.

And you are the faces behind the trustworthy and reliable data and statistics that inform the EUs policy and decision-making processes.

Your work helps to ensure that the decisions we take in the College are as well-informed as possible, based on reliable, timely and comparable statistics and data.

This in turn leads to the policies that benefit citizens, businesses, and Member States across Europe.

Turning to the topic of special focus at this years General Assembly.

Artificial intelligence is fundamentally reshaping our societies, our economies, and our daily lives.

It is the strategic technology that will shape the 21st century.

The European Commission recognises its crucial importance today and its transformative potential for the future.

We have recently launched two complementary strategies to shape our approach on making the most of the opportunities offered by AI, while also addressing the new challenges that it brings.

The Apply AI Strategy aims to drive AI adoption across strategic sectors, including healthcare and pharmaceuticals, energy, mobility, manufacturing, construction, climate and environment, defence and culture.

It will foster the growth of the European AI ecosystem, by accelerating the time to market and linking infrastructure, data, and testing facilities.

It will also support small and medium-sized enterprises in integrating AI into their operations.

To coordinate these efforts, the Apply AI Alliance will be launched, bringing together industry, the public sector, academia, social partners and civil society.

In parallel, the AI in Science Strategy will advance the responsible and strategic integration of artificial intelligence technologies into the European research and innovation landscape.

It will support the uptake of AI across all disciplines, boosting innovation, jobs and growth.

Building on Europes strengths in collaborative research and scientific excellence, the strategy will aim to reinforce Europes technological leadership and competitiveness.

Both strategies clearly demonstrate our commitment to harnessing AIs potential while ensuring that its development remains safe, trustworthy and aligned with European values.

Of course, the opportunities and challenges presented by AI are also present in the field of official statistics.

There are extraordinary opportunities to produce and analyse data and statistics in a more timely, efficient and cost-effective manner.

But AI also presents issues which will require careful consideration to successfully navigate.

Let me briefly mention some of these opportunities and issues.

First, it is clear that AI models must be firmly grounded in trustworthy sources.

After all, AI systems are only as good as the data they learn from.

Users must remain assured that AI-based solutions support statisticians in producing reliable data.

Therefore, it will be important to invest in additional safeguards and AI-proof quality assurance measures.

Second, AI presents an opportunity to reduce the reporting burden and better use novel data sources, while maintaining the highest standards of quality.

For example, AI could help in the time and labour-intensive task of extracting statistical information from large, unstructured data sources.

It will also be useful in improving data processing and quality assurance, such as enhancing statistical classification processes and imputations.

Third, Eurostats statistics and data must become discoverable by search engines and be used by them to answer user queries in order to harness the full potential of AI.

This will allow the rapidly increasing number of people using chatbots to directly find relevant and trustworthy statistics on the topic of their interest.

For this, Eurostat must make its data AI-ready.

So, dear colleagues, successfully riding the AI tide will require great agility, creativity, and responsibility.

Strengthening cooperation within the European Statistical System and with your international partners to enhance the quality and relevance of European statistics should remain a priority.

This includes in relation to best practices on the use of AI in producing and interpreting statistics.

To this end, I welcome the One-stop-shop for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Official Statistics Project, a collaboration involving 16 countries.

The overall aim is to develop a platform which provides a single-entry point for European Statistical System staff to access a coherent set of capabilities for implementing AI and Machine Learning-based solutions.

This will, in turn, contribute to the development of more efficient and effective ways to deliver growing demand on official statistics.

I look forward to learning the outcome and takeaways of this project.

Beyond AI, I encourage Eurostat to continue to confront other important challenges.

In a world full of half-truths and disinformation, it can sometimes seem like the facts we can agree and rely on are sometimes in short supply.

In this respect, I encourage Eurostat to continue its excellent efforts in making European official statistics accessible, understandable and impactful.

Finally, I want to emphasise the importance of Eurostats independence.

The trustworthiness of your statistics depends on the users perception that they are independent and free from any political influence.

As the Commissioner responsible for Eurostat, I am fully committed to defending Eurostats independent role in the Commission and beyond, and to safeguarding the impartiality and objectivity of your work.

To conclude, this years World Statistics Day theme is Driving change with quality statistics and data for everyone.

This highlights the importance of reliable data in informing policy, driving development, and transforming lives.

This has always been Eurostats guiding principle.

So, while AI is reshaping the world around us, your fundamental mission remains unchanged:

to provide trustworthy, high-quality statistics and data that serve the public good.

Thank you, once again, for your hard work and dedication.

And I wish you all a very happy World Statistics Day.