Skopje, 14 November 2022 (MIA) - Deputy Chief Negotiator with the European Union and State Secretary Drita Abdiu-Halili is leading Monday a delegation in Luxembourg for a meeting of the bilateral screening within Chapter 18 – Statistics from the Fundamentals cluster. “Statistics is of great importance for the overall development of our country, it contributes to good planning and monitoring of macroeconomic stability, improvement of the business climate, the functioning of the labor market and finances, better quality of education, the infrastructure, the innovations, that is, for the advancement of the economic integration in the European Union,” Abdiu-Halili said at the meeting. The European legislation on statistics is continuously implemented and amended in order to adopt new methodologies, technologies and techniques for data collection and analysis. “Representatives from the State Statistical Office, the Ministry of Interior, the Institute of Public Health, as well as other state institutions working on this chapter will present the Macedonian legislative framework to the European Commission experts and the level of alignment with the EU law related to the chapter Statistics. The level of implementation of the existing legal framework will also be presented, as well as the institutional capacities needed for the full implementation of the new European regulations and directives that were presented by the European Commission during the explanatory screening that took place in September 2022. Our negotiating team is fully committed and prepared for the tasks ahead,” Secretariat for European Affairs said in a press release.