The EU Council appointed, on 24 January, Thomas Wieser (Austria) as chairperson of the European Statistical Governance Advisory Board (ESGAB) and Pilar Martin-Guzman, Guenter Kopsch and Edvard Outrata as members of the ESGAB Board. ESGAB was established in 2008 “to provide an independent overview of the European statistical system as regards the implementation of the European Statistics Code of Practice”. The chairperson and three new board members are appointed for a three-year term of office starting on 23 March.