Better Regulation Practices across the European Union 2022

European Union

Overview and recent developments

The 2016 Interinstitutional Agreement between the European Commission (EC), the European Parliament and the Council recognised stakeholder engagement, regulatory impact assessment (RIA), and ex post evaluation as core elements to improve regulatory quality. The EC is the executive of the European Union (EU). It develops and presents regulatory proposals in accordance with its Better Regulation Toolkit to the European Parliament and the Council for adoption. The Commission announced in the 2021 Policy Communication on Better Regulation to further streamline consultations particularly through the call for evidence, integrate foresight, introduce regulatory offsetting and to require policy makers to provide information about the attainment of long‑term goals such as climate change and the SDGs.

The Commission’s Secretariat General ensures overall coherence of the Commission’s work and oversees compliance with its commitment to Better Regulation and develops its policy. It reviews RIAs, stakeholder engagement processes and ex post evaluations, oversees burden reduction activities, provides capacity support and draft corporate guidance on better regulation. It also serves as Secretariat to the Regulatory Scrutiny Board (RSB), which consists of three Commission officials and three external experts and is chaired by a Commission’s Director General. The RSB checks the quality of all impact assessments and selected evaluations and fitness checks. Its mandate was expanded in 2020 to include outreach activities and oversight regarding the one in-one out rule. The RSB’s mandate has been enlarged to reflect the European Commission’s decision to embed strategic foresight into its working methods, including to inform the design of new initiatives and the review of existing ones. The European Parliament’s Directorate for Impact Assessment and European Added Value also reviews RIAs attached to draft legislation submitted by the Commission, and conducts in-depth analysis and impact assessments of amendments at the request of Parliamentary committees. The Council has also developed its capacity to assess impacts of their substantial amendments, but it has not used it so far.

Ex ante impact assessments continue to be carried out for major primary laws and subordinate legislation. Calls for evidence, including an initial assessment of possible impacts and options to be considered, are prepared and consulted on before a full RIA is conducted. Following or simultaneously with this initial feedback period, the EC conducts public consultations during the development of initiatives with an impact assessment. Legislative proposals and the accompanying full RIA are then published online for feedback following approval of the proposal by the College of Commissioners. Draft subordinate legislation is consulted on publicly. Transparency could be further improved by making RIAs on subordinate legislation available at this stage with the opportunity to comment on the analysis.

The ex post evaluation system, combining systematic evaluations of individual regulations with comprehensive “Fitness checks” of policy sectors, invites comment on evaluation Call for evidence and on the main elements of all evaluations. The RSB now provides quality indicators on evaluations which are made publicly available along with compliance statistics. The Fit for Future Platform brings together representatives of Member States and stakeholders (business, civil society, and non-government stakeholders) to make suggestions for simplification and modernisation (including digitalisation) of EU legislation. Indicators below mainly represent practices of the European Commission. The other EU institutions and in particular the Council seems to be lagging behind in terms of the implementation of the 2016 Interinstitutional Agreement.

Indicators of Regulatory Policy and Governance (iREG): European Union, 2021

Notes: The more regulatory practices as advocated in the OECD Recommendation on Regulatory Policy and Governance a country has implemented, the higher its iREG score. Results presented apply to all legislation (regulations, directives and implementing and delegated acts) initiated by the European Commission, who is the sole initiator of legislation in the EU system.

Source: Indicators of Regulatory Policy and Governance Surveys 2017 and 2021, http://oe.cd/ireg.

Negotiating and implementing EU legislation

Negotiation stage: Most EU directives and EU regulations are adopted by the Council of the EU and the European Parliament through the ordinary legislative procedure. Throughout this process, the Council and the European Parliament separately review the Commission’s legislative proposal. In the Council and its sub-committees, Member States’ governments propose amendments and negotiate a common position on the legislative draft. Each Member State may undertake stakeholder engagement and regulatory impact assessment to help inform its negotiation position. The Council’s role in conducting impact assessments on amendments made in its committees has so far remained limited. EU legislation is adopted once the Council and the Parliament agree on a joint text.

Transposition stage: Member States are required to transpose EU directives, i.e. to incorporate them into their national laws, by adopting dedicated transposition measures. The transposition of EU directives provides EU countries with considerable latitude on the process and method of implementation. Many directives are designed such that they provide scope for Member States to include additional provisions. Governments usually transpose directives through domestic legislative procedures and may consult stakeholders and conduct regulatory impact assessment throughout this process. Each directive is required to be transposed to a specific deadline set in each directive. The Commission monitors the timely and legally accurate transposition of directives and can initiate infringement procedures where the transposition of directives is delayed.