The sum of these distances over all traversed local airspaces equals the distance used in the Union-wide indicator.

20. Highlights the importance of further research in the field of social, economic and territorial cohesion; points to the need for statistics and indicators at European level that would provide reliable and sufficiently pertinent socio-economic, scientific and environmental data, including broad assessment of fish stocks and catches in both professional and recreational fishing, and calls for the provision of sufficient resources to achieve this; believes such data should also reflect the full range of geographical, cultural and regional differences;

5. Highlights the importance of further research in the field of social, economic and territorial cohesion; points to the need for statistics and indicators at European level that would provide reliable and sufficiently pertinent socio-economic, scientific and environmental data, including broad assessment of fish stocks and catches, in both professional and recreational fishing, and requests the provision of sufficient resources to achieve this; Believes such data should also reflect the full range of geographical, cultural and regional differences;

2. Suggests aiming at a limited set of relevant indicators which may later be easily complemented by other indicators and at a set of summary indicators, which may embody two complementary perspectives on the environment via a monetarised indicator such as Adjusted Net Savings and a physical indicator such as ecological footprint, carbon footprint or other decoupling indicators, as well as a few broader indicators of social inclusion and human well-being such as the GINI index and the Human Poverty Index or Index of Social Health; suggests that GDP in itself be improved; points as examples to the ‘Index for Sustainable Economic Welfare ...[+++]’, the ‘Genuine Progress Indicators’ or the ‘National Welfare Index’; recommends that Eurostat work in close cooperation with other research centres and organisations that have developed such indicators in order to make them more accurate and implementable;

There are two other amendments proposing uniform European standards on the quality of groundwater for important indicators and pollutants.

The Commission is currently undertaking a study on benchmarking which will explore the possibilities of developing indicators at EU-level and has recently adopted an Action Plan for the collection and analysis of Community Statistics in the field of migration [90].