Better Regulation Practices across the European Union

Cyprus

Overview and recent developments

The comprehensive Action Plan for improving the regulatory framework in Cyprus was approved by the Council of Ministers in October 2015. The plan includes the promotion of impact assessment of new legislation, better consultation practices, and administrative simplification.

Stakeholder engagement does not always currently occur at an early stage of policy development — which is generally to identify the nature of the public policy problem and inform discussions about possible solutions, including non-regulatory ones — in Cyprus. The Consultation Guidelines issued in December 2016 presents best practices on consulting early. Consultation at a later stage of policy development is undertaken for both primary laws and subordinate regulations, and participants’ views are made public. Although regulators are required to take feedback into account, they are currently not required to respond to participants’ comments making it difficult for participants to see how their input has helped shaped regulatory proposals.

Regulatory impact assessment (RIA) is required for all regulatory proposals relating to both primary laws and subordinate regulations. Although Cyprus introduced a new RIA framework in September 2017, a number of gaps remain. The impact assessment system could be improved by adopting a more proportionate approach to regulatory proposals, considering a broader range of costs and benefits, and establishing an oversight body for RIA quality control.

Ex post evaluation of laws and regulations is currently not undertaken in Cyprus.

Institutional setup for regulatory oversight

The Unit for Administrative Reform of the Presidency was established pursuant to the Council of Ministers Decision 77.561 of 2014 to assist the Deputy Minister to the President in implementing the Action Plan, and is responsible for the overall better regulation agenda in Cyprus. However, the Unit has no powers of oversight in relation to the use of regulatory management tools. The Public Administration and Personnel Department of the Ministry of Finance has recently taken responsibility for the implementation of the Better Regulation Agenda.

To date, no evaluations have been conducted in Cyprus to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of any of its regulatory management tools. In May 2018 however, the first RIA Annual Implementation Report was published. Its purpose was to present quantitative and qualitative data for the first year of implementation of the new RIA framework.

Indicators of Regulatory Policy and Governance (iREG): Cyprus, 2018

Note: The more regulatory practices as advocated in the OECD Recommendation on Regulatory Policy and Governance a country has implemented, the higher its iREG score. The indicators on stakeholder engagement and RIA for primary laws only cover those initiated by the executive (77% of all primary laws in Cyprus).

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

Requirements to use regulatory management tools for EU-made laws: Cyprus

Stakeholder engagement		Regulatory impact assessment
Development stage
The government facilitates the engagement of domestic stakeholders in the European Commission’s consultation process	Yes
Negotiation stage
Stakeholder engagement is required to define the negotiating position for EU directives/regulations	Yes	RIA is required to define the negotiating position for EU directives/regulations	No
Consultation is required to be open to the general public	No
Transposition stage
Stakeholder engagement is required when transposing EU directives	Yes	RIA is required when transposing EU directives	Yes
The same requirements and processes apply as for domestically made laws	Yes	The same requirements and processes for RIA apply as for domestically made laws	Yes
Consultation is required to be open to the general public	No	RIA includes a specific assessment of provisions added at the national level beyond those in the EU directives	Yes
		RIA distinguishes between impacts stemming from EU requirements and additional national implementation measures	Yes

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