摘要：In the last 20 years statistical data has become vastly more important for economic policy in Europe. Whereas economic statistics once played a role in relatively marginal areas of European policy, the establishment of the macroeconomic convergence criteria for joining Economic and Monetary Union in the Maastricht Treaty in 1992–1993 sparked a quantum leap. Questions of comparability and harmonisation suddenly became increasingly relevant. The Stability and Growth Pact then made the calculation of the budget deficit and government debt even more important, including the measurement of GDP as denominator for the respektive ratios. With the outbreak of the second Greek crisis in 2009–10 and the fl aws that emerged in the quality of Greek economic statistics, statistical questions were suddenly at the centre of international media and political interest. At the same time the fi nancial and economic crisis brought to the fore severe economic imbalances, both between European countries and within European countries. In order to prevent similar imbalances in the future, the EU has developed and adopted the "macroeconomic imbalance procedure", in which currently eleven macroeconomic indicators are used for on-going surveillance of countries ("alert mechanism"). Thus more economic statistics have gained an important political function, particularly since sanctions can even be imposed on the basis of them. In parallel with this, the new European Supervisory Authorities use "dashboards" i.e. a range of statistics that are regularly watched and are intended to function as early warning indicators. The paper takes a look at this move towards more "evidence-based policy making" and its implications for European statistics and statisticians and discusses the related challenges, paying particular attention to the role of the European Central Bank and its specifi c data needs
关键词：Statistics; policy-making; European Central Bank; European System of Central Banks; Eurostat
