Eurostat, the European Union's statistical agency, is considering warning Belgium, Greece and Ireland to improve the quality of economic data they produce, a Belgian newspaper reported on Saturday.
Eurostat's Director-General Michel Vanden Abeele told L'Echo in an interview that his agency, which collates data provided by EU member states, had failed to enforce the bloc's rules on data quality in the past.
"What I discovered when I arrived was that there was a certain 'benign neglect' in this area," said Vanden Abeele, who took over in May 2003 following a corruption scandal at the agency.
"It wasn't that important, but there were delays in applying various statistical regulations, and sometimes little will for proper quality control."
Vanden Abeele said he now intended to take a tougher stance.
"We are in the process of launching a number of pre-contentious cases, notably involving Belgium, Ireland and Greece," he said, adding that the cases highlighted the lack of resources suffered by some national statistical agencies.
Eurostat also plans to make all its data available free on the Internet from October, rather than selling it through third parties.
"I see no reason for Eurostat to be a profit centre. From the moment a statistic is published, anyone can put it on the Internet. It's best that we do it ourselves," he said.
Vanden Abeele was also considering cutting back some statistics, such as those on intra-EU trade flows, and expanding environmental indicators.