On December 31, the Lithuanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union came to an end. For half a year, Statistics Lithuania was presiding over the EU Council Working Party on Statistics (CWPS). It was one of the priorities for Statistics Lithuania in 2013. The greatest responsibility fell on the Presidency Team (chaired by First Deputy Director General J. Markelevičius), assisted by experts in various fields of statistics.

During the Statistics Lithuania's presidency over the CWPS, negotiations and procedures were completed and three very important regulations of the European Parliament and of the Council were adopted and published in the Official Journal: a completely new legislative act regulating the production of European demographic statistics, and two amended legislative acts – concerning agriculture and fishery statistics and concerning the European statistical programme 2013–2017.

Substantial progress was achieved in the deliberation of the Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the organisation of a labour force sample survey in the Community (progress in two informal trilogues with the European Parliament; agreement reached on most of the provisions). The deliberations were finalised in the CWPS and agreement was reached on the update (amendment) of the following regulations of the European Parliament and of the Council: on European environmental economic accounts (a compromise between the Member States reached; Coreper (Committee of Permanent Representatives) endorsed a mandate for the informal trilogue with the European Parliament), on farm structure surveys and the survey on agricultural production methods (a compromise between the Member States reached; Coreper agreed to subject the proposal to a simplified procedure), and on Community statistics relating to the trading of goods between Member States (Intrastat) (a compromise between the Member States reached).

Progress was also achieved on proposals for other legislative acts (on Extrastat, macroeconomic imbalance procedure, alignment of the legislative package with the procedures established in Article 290 of the Lisbon Treaty).

The deliberation of the amendment of Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European statistics, inherited from the Danish Presidency, was continued. On November 21, the European Parliament confirmed its position in first reading. Consultations took place with the Commission and the European Parliament concerning the early second reading agreement; however, a final compromise between the Member States and the European Parliament has not been reached yet.

During the six months of the Lithuanian Presidency, five CWPS meetings were held, 11 proposals on legislative acts of different complexity and urgency were dealt with (five legislative proposals had been inherited from previous presidencies and continued during the Lithuanian Presidency, six were started by the Lithuanian Presidency). 19 official documents and about 40 preparatory and supporting documents for various-level meetings were produced. Four informal trilogues with the European Parliament were run, 13 written hearings-consultations with the Member States took place, 11 Coreper meetings were approached on different dossiers. Intensive correspondence took place; on some days, up to 100 Presidency-related emails had to be answered. About five telephone consultations, on average, with the representatives of other Member States, the Council Secretariat, Commission and European Parliament were held daily.

On 18 December, in Vilnius, the Presidency of the Working Party on Statistics was officially handed over to the colleagues from Greece.

A final progress report on all legislative files dealt with under the Lithuanian Presidency is under preparation and will be published on the Presidency website, at http://eu2013.stat.gov.lt.