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(1) The need to establish Europe-wide standards on the independence, integrity and accountability of the national and Community statistical authorities led the Statistical Programme Committee established by Council Decision 89/382/EEC, Euratom , unanimously to endorse, at its meeting on 24 February 2005, the European Statistics Code of Practice (hereinafter referred to as the Code of Practice) as presented in the Recommendation of the Commission of 25 May 2005 on the independence, integrity and accountability of the national and Community statistical authorities.

(2) The Code of Practice has the dual purpose of improving trust and confidence in statistical authorities by proposing certain institutional and organisational arrangements on the one hand and reinforcing the quality of the statistics they produce on the other.

(3) In the Communication of 25 May 2005 to the European Parliament and to the Council on the independence, integrity and accountability of the national and Community statistical authorities, the Commission acknowledged the usefulness of an external advisory body that could play an active role in overseeing how the Code of Practice is implemented by the European Statistical System as a whole. In its Recommendation of 25 May 2005, the Commission stated its intention to consider proposing the establishment of such an external advisory body.

(4) On 8 November 2005, the Council concluded that a new high-level advisory body would enhance the independence, integrity and accountability of the Commission (Eurostat) and, in the context of the peer review assessment of implementing the Code of Practice, of the European Statistical System. The Council recommended that the body should be a small group of independent persons appointed on the basis of their competence.

(5) The members of that body should provide a complementary mix of skills and experience, drawing, for example, on people from academia and those with national and/or international professional experience in the field of statistics.

(6) The body should establish an assessment for the Commission (Eurostat) on the implementation of the Code of Practice analogous to the peer review of National Statistical Offices.

(7) A dialogue with the Statistical Programme Committee and the European Statistical Advisory Committee, established by Decision No 234/2008/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council , on the Code of Practice, and also with Member States’ stakeholder bodies, should be encouraged where appropriate.

(8) An advisory board should therefore be established, and its tasks and structure defined, without prejudice to Article 5 of the Protocol on the Statute of the European System of Central Banks and of the European Central Bank,