Work in the EU
European Regulatory Reform
NNR is of the opinion that improved quality and simplification of European legislation alongside the reduction of costs to business of complying with regulation must remain a key priority for the EU institutions and Member States’ Governments. BUSINESSEUROPE Better Regulation Working Group
NNR is liaising with business organisations across the EU. NNR President, Jens Hedström, chairs the BUSINESSEUROPE Better Regulation Working Group. The Group includes representatives from all major European business organisations. The recommendations of the Group on better regulation are communicated to EU policy-makers to ensure that business interests are taken into account as legislation is decided. http://www.businesseurope.eu
Better regulation is one element in the EU’s Partnership for Growth and Jobs strategy, which updates the Lisbon Agenda aimed at making the EU the world’s most competitive economy. The overarching objective of the strategy is to improve the quality and effectiveness of the acquis and remove unnecessary burdens for business, thereby contributing to the goal of enhancing competitiveness of the European economy. This includes improving the quality of new legislation; withdrawing unnecessary pending legislative proposals; simplifying existing legislation and reducing administrative burdens on business.
Overall the Working Group is encouraged by the continued commitment to better regulation principles by policy-makers, demonstrated most recently in the EU Commission’s ‘Second Strategic Review of Better Regulation in the European Union’ published 30 January 2008. The Review concludes, for example, that five of the ten so-called Fast Track Simplification Proposals have been adopted by the Council and European Parliament and that 165 simplification proposals have been put forward by the Commission. ec.europa.eu/enterprise/key_issues/better_regulation/
However, a lot of work remains to be done and the Working Group’s key priorities are:
1. The inter-institutional working arrangements should be improved to ensure that simplification proposals are dealt with rapidly without creating new burdens. Especially, the European Parliament and Council will have to focus more on these issues and raise their ambition level.
2. The Council and European Parliament should make better progress with respect to systematic impact assessments on their amendments to Commission proposals. This is important since such amendments can significantly alter the scope and consequences of the original proposal.
The Commission’s Communication ‘Implementing the Community Lisbon Programme: a strategy for the simplification of the regulatory environment COM(2005)535 establishes a rolling programme for simplification of existing EU legislation that has proved particularly burdensome for business. The programme specifies those pieces of legislation that the Commission envisages reviewing and assessing with the view of simplifying them.
In December 2003, the three EU institutions (the Commission, the European Parliament and the Council) agreed an Inter-institutional Agreement (IIA) on Better Law-Making. The main elements in the agreement include improving inter-institutional co-ordination and transparency, modifying the working methods of the Parliament and the Council to accelerate the adoption of simplification proposals; increasing the use of impact assessments in Community decision-making, and providing a stable framework for ‘soft law’ instruments that should facilitate their future use.
The Inter-institutional Agreement on Better Law-making acknowledges the importance of impact assessments in improving the quality of Community legislation and also sets out that, where the co-decision procedure applies, the European Parliament and the Council may have impact assessments carried out prior to the adoption of any substantive amendments they make.
3. BUSINESSEUROPE has welcomed the establishment of the Impact Assessment Board (IAB). The Board’s reviews of Commission impact assessments are a step towards improving the overall quality of impact assessments at EU level. However, to facilitate the involvement of stakeholders, impact assessments and their corresponding opinions by the IAB should be made available before legislative proposals are published. Furthermore, draft policy cannot, and should not, mean a prior commitment to legislate. Therefore, the IAB should be given the power to stop a proposal going to the Commission for approval if there are shortcomings in the impact assessment analysis. Finally, considering the importance of critical oversight, the need for a truly independent body will also have to be assessed and the Better Regulation Working Group will review all IAB opinions to assess the overall quality and to propose improvements.
4. The Commission and Member States should look beyond administrative costs, which are narrowly linked to information obligations, and also consider reductions of the more varied and substantially higher compliance/policy and enforcement costs to business of complying with regulation. In addition, they should make sure that new legislation does not undermine the reduction target.
The Commission has set a target to reduce administrative burdens by 25% by 2012. In January 2007, it adopted the Communication entitled Action. Programme for Reducing Administrative Burdens in the European Union COM(2007)23. The Communication states that the Commission will take a transparent approach towards implementing the Action Programme by involving stakeholders from all over the European Union and continuously benefiting from their input. http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/admin-burdens-reduction/admin_burdens_en.htm
The Commission launched the work of a High Level Group of Independent Stakeholders on Administrative Burdens in November 2007. The Group has a three-year mandate to advise the Commission on the implementation of its Action Plan on reducing administrative burdens imposed by legislation in the EU. Mr Edmund Stoiber has been appointed to chair the Group and 14 members from industry, SMEs and environmental and consumer groups with experience of better regulation from across
Stakeholders are encouraged to submit simplification proposals through the High Level Group or the Commission’s online portal at: http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/admin-burdens-reduction/index_en.htm
At national level, it is of utmost importance for policy-makers to engage early in the EU legislative process and carry out national impact assessments of EU Commission legislative proposals before they are adopted. This is to ensure that Swedish representatives are aware of the impacts on Swedish business of proposals before they are debated at EU level. At present there is no obligation on Swedish authorities to carry out such early national Impact Assessments.
National impact assessments of EU legislation are generally carried out at implementation stage in . This is too late as it will no longer be possible to influence the structure and contents of legislation. Impact assessments should therefore be carried out by Swedish government departments and agencies at proposal stage and be used as a basis for negotiations in Brussels. This way, Swedish decision-makers would have a better idea of the impact that proposals are likely to have on business from the very initial stages of a legislative proposal.
Equally important is the continued commitment by the EU Commission to its simplification agenda and target to reduce by 25% the administrative burdens on business of complying with regulation. NNR has expressed its support for the Commission’s ambitious better regulation agenda. However, we will judge its success on the delivery of real, tangible results and improvements for business.