Business and Consumer Surveys Programme

The Joint Harmonised EU Programme of Business and Consumer Surveys (BCS) provides harmonised and timely data to monitor economic sentiment across the EU Member States and candidate countries; supporting economic surveillance, short-term forecasting, and general economic analysis and research. Established in 1961 and managed by the Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), the BCS Programme collects monthly survey data on economic perceptions and expectations across managers in key sectors—industry, services, retail trade, construction—and among consumers. **The BCS programme has become an indispensable tool in the EMU economic surveillance process, as well as for general economic policy purposes. Harmonisation across countries is essential to allow the comparison of business cycles in the different countries as well as the calculation of meaningful business cycle indices for the euro area and the EU as a whole.** DG ECFIN publishes the detailed survey data monthly, including composite headline indicators tracking economic confidence, uncertainty and employment expectations in specific sectors and the economy as a whole. The data generated are widely used by European institutions such as the European Commission and the European Central Bank (ECB), as well as by national authorities, financial institutions, and researchers for forecasting, policy formulation, and economic planning.