Page 251 - Invited Paper Session (IPS) - Volume 2

IPS236 Eva L.
The fact that the tasks of national statistical societies differ from those of
the official statistical services arises from the more diverse composition of
national statistical societies. Beyond the institutions of the official statistical
service, the actors of the academic sphere, the university campuses dealing
with statistics, enterprises using statistics for their operation participate also in
the work of national statistical societies. What is important is that in the
national statistical societies we also find users in the broad sense of the term,
citizens, public opinion interested in statistics. Due to the composition of
national statistical societies, the international relations of the national
statistical societies are also more varied, which could be the source of many
advantages. What is also important: they have greater „freedom” in freedom
of expression.

2.2.3. International relations in statistics
The birth of statistics was followed by the emergence of international
statistical organisations. We have to mention among the firsts the
International Statistical Institute (ISI), which was founded in 1885 after
several years of preparation.
One of the most important fora of official statistics is the UN Statistical
Commission established in 1947, which is basically a body of official statistics,
but has begun in the past years to deal more and more frequently with the
issues of the cooperation between official statistics and national statistical
societies as well.
As European citizen, I would mention the federation created by the
European national statistical societies, the Federation of European National
Statistical Societies (FENStatS). FENStatS was established in 2011, currently
having 24 members (the Hungarian Statistical Association joined the
Federation in 2013). The aim of the FENStatS is to promote mutual
communication, co-operation and statistical research in Europe and to
develop, relations of statistics to society, relations to European institutes, and
particularly has the scope to support the diffusion of statistical education in
Europe.
In Europe we can find significant number of cooperation activities
established on the basis of other motivations. Such a cooperation is – for
example – the joint action of the German-speaking European national
statistical societies, or the cooperation of the national statistical societies in
the Central European region (Visegrád national statistical societies - V7). The
V7 was established in 2005 in Budapest by the Hungarian Statistical
Association. The members of the V7 cooperation are the national statistical
societies of Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia
and Poland (it should not be mixed up with the V4 political formation
established in the 2010s by Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland).

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