This third progress report on the strategy for simplifying the regulatory environment complements the third strategic review of Better Regulation in the European Union and the Commission Working Document on reducing administrative burden. It reviews the considerable ground covered since the launch of the strategy, highlights success stories and maps areas for future simplification action.

Since the launch of the strategy for simplifying the regulatory environment in 2005, simplification has been mainstreamed into the work of the Commission. Through a range of coordinated activities, the Commission has built up a political and practical framework of action delivering tangible benefits for citizens, businesses and public administrations. In an effort to make legislation more clear and understandable , some 1 300 acts , representing around 10% of the acquis, have been proposed for removal from the EU statute book.

Simplification is a continuous process. The snapshot provided by the screening of the acquis prepares the ground for future work. A programme which started with a limited number of dispersed initiatives now covers all policy areas and is taking an increasingly sectoral approach. This means examining the entire body of legislation that affects a given policy area to identify overlaps, gaps, inconsistencies and excessive regulatory burdens. The aim is to assess the overall effectiveness of the regulatory framework sector by sector.

In driving forward the simplification agenda, the Commission will require political support from the other EU institutions and the Member States. The European Parliament and the Council are invited to do their utmost to adopt pending proposals as soon as possible and to preserve their simplification content during the decision-making process. The Member States are encouraged to carry forward their own simplification programmes and to apply EU law in a spirit of simplification, without adding unnecessary measures on the back of EU law.

On a daily basis, European citizens and businesses are confronted with a mix of EU, national and regional legislation. Only a coordinated simplification effort at all these levels can ensure that this regulatory framework serves its purpose in the best possible way – safeguarding growth and welfare, while keeping burdens to the minimum necessary.

COM(2009)0017
EUR-Lex

The present Commission Working Document is a direct follow-up to the October 2005 Communication COM(2005) 535: Implementing the Community Lisbon programme: A strategy for the simplification of the regulatory environment. It also complements the Communication on the “Strategic review of Better Regulation in the European Union”.

This document takes stock of progress achieved in the implementation of the October 2005 simplification, addresses ongoing work in the pipeline and presents brand new initiatives which will enhance the simplification rolling programme covering the period 2006-2009. One of the key achievements of simplification is the progressive coverage of all EC regulatory areas. The Commission Working Document will also present a state of play in terms of codification.

In parallel, this first progress report addresses the success factors for achieving the simplification goals, in particular a solid set of methodologies, improved inter institutional cooperation with the European Parliament and the Council to take the work to the final stages, increased use of self-regulation and co-regulation as well as simplification at national level to ensure that the EU simplification benefits are not cancelled out by new national rules or technical barriers.

This document outlines a number of major simplification initiatives relevant for competitiveness confirmed for 2006/2007/2008:

• Agriculture : merging of the 21 Common Market Organisations into one single scheme;

• Environment : review of the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control Directive (IPPC) and other related legislation on industrial emissions;

• Construction products Directive: revision of this Directive with a view to clarifying and reducing the administrative burden, in particular for SMEs;

• Statistics : lighten statistical reporting by economic operators, in particular SMEs;

• Food/Feed labelling : the modernisation of the legislation in this field;

• Consumer protection : rationalisation and simplification of the whole consumer protection acquis;

• Cosmetics : recasting the cosmetics Directive which has been modified more than 40 times;

• Accounting and financial reporting standards : Providing EU firms with an up-to-date set of Financial Reporting Standards by merging the current set of Regulation into one single and user-friendly Regulation;

• Automotive Regulatory Framework : the pending proposal for the revision of the framework Directive on type-approval of motor vehicles, when approved, will allow: i) the replacement of EC Directives by UN/ECE regulations. This simplification will streamline regulations and remove redundant requirements. Furthermore, it will help global industry to remove non-tariff barriers to trade, maintaining the EU's leading position as the developer of international standards and allowing industry to adapt faster to technical developments at international level; ii) the introduction of necessary technical provisions for self-testing and virtual testing in 25 EC Directives and UN/ECE Regulations;

• Access to the road transport market and profession : recasting four regulations and one directive;

• Consolidation of the technical New Approach Regulations/Directives for the marketing of products around consistent definitions, simplified certification procedures and streamlined administrative cooperation so as to facilitate the commercialisation of products while protecting manufacturers against non- conforming products.

Based on the rolling programme launched last year, the Commission is reinforcing its simplification action with 43 new initiatives for the period 2006-2009 to:

- stimulate innovation and reduce administrative burden stemming from regulatory requirements;

- reduce the total volume of the Community acquis and promote the transition to more flexible regulatory approaches.

In the future, the ongoing work on the reduction of administrative burden will feed into the simplification exercise which will, in his turn, contribute to an overall 25% joint reduction target for EU and national legislation to be achieved by 2012, as indicated in the “Strategic Review of Better Regulation”.

In line with this, the benefits of extensive consultations of stakeholders and impact assessments will help improve the quality of the Commission's new proposals and will better enable legislators to produce a regulatory environment that is in full compliance with the subsidiarity principle and is more conducive to competitiveness, innovation and growth. This is likely to alleviate the future simplification workload. Progress reports will be launched on a regular basis.

COM(2006)0690
EUR-Lex

SP(2006)3065-2

SP(2006)2902

Results of vote in Parliament

The European Parliament adopted a resolution based on the own-initiative report drafted by Giuseppe GARGANI (EPP-ED, IT), in response to the Commission's strategy paper on simplifying the regulatory environment. It strongly supported the process of simplification of the Union's regulatory environment, but stressed that such a process must be based on a number of preconditions: full involvement of the European Parliament in the adoption of the legislation subject to the "simplification process"; consultation of all relevant stakeholders, thus including not only Member States and business but also non-governmental organisations; strengthening of the general transparency of the regulatory process, in particular by opening Council discussions to the public when the Council is acting in its legislative capacity. Parliament welcomed the intention to reduce the unnecessary burden on SMEs and to reinforce the use of information technology.

It felt, however, that the simplification process should not entail lowering the standards set by current legislation, and warned against an excessively narrow and exclusively financial and administrative analysis of the costs and benefits of the legislation concerned. Any assessment with a view to simplification must take account equally of economic, social, environmental and health aspects, and should not restrict itself to short-term considerations.

Parliament took the view that the repeal of irrelevant and obsolete acts was a priority requirement with which the Commission must comply without delay. However, when Community legislation is repealed on those grounds, a Community act must be put in place at the same time to prevent Member States from regulating matters that have been deregulated at Community level. In addition, Parliament pointed out that, while there may be over-regulation in some areas, this state of affairs was due in large measure to the lawmaking activity of the Member States and that, therefore, if Community legislation was to be repealed, this must be followed by repeal of the corresponding national provisions. The Commission should constantly monitor such national legislation as might remain in force after the Community legislation that gave rise to it has been repealed.

Parliament went on to state that codification and recasting were the primary means of simplifying the acquis communautaire and should be used more widely. It supported the codification of the acquis communitaire but was sceptical about its total recasting, as this might well lead to diverging interpretations among the EU institutions. It warned that simplification should not lead to a re-writing of the acquis outside democratic control.

Parliament considered that the institutions might usefully determine whether a third type of operation might be provided for, alongside codification and recasting, so as to afford the most appropriate means of simplifying Community legal acts. It felt that the Interinstitutional Agreement on recasting should spell out the procedure to follow in cases where, during a legislative procedure, it proves necessary to alter the codified parts of the act, and called on the Commission to submit a proposal with a view to recasting the interinstitutional agreements governing the quality of Union legislation. The Committee on Constitutional Affairs was asked to determine what amendments might be made to the Rules of Procedure to enable the agreement on recasting to be effectively implemented, not least with a view to making greater use of the simplified procedures laid down in the Rules of Procedure.

Traditional legislative instruments must continue to be used as a general rule to attain the objectives laid down in the Treaties. The use of alternative regulatory methods such as co-regulation and self-regulation could usefully supplement legislative measures where these methods make improvements of equivalent or broader scope than legislation can provide, but any use of alternative regulatory methods must comply with the interinstitutional agreement on "better law-making".

Finally, Parliament stated that it was surprised that the issue of reforming the current system of delegating rule-making ("comitology") received only a brief mention in passing in the Commission communication of 2005, even though such a reform could make a major contribution to simplifying secondary Community law by allowing the Commission to adopt implementing provisions using faster procedures.

T6-0205/2006

Debate in Parliament

A6-0080/2006

A6-0080/2006

The committee adopted the own-initiative report drawn up by its chair, Giuseppe GARGANI (EPP-ED, IT), in response to the Commission's strategy paper on simplifying the regulatory environment. It strongly supported the Commission's proposals, although it warned that the process should be conditional upon full involvement of Parliament in the adoption of legislation, upon wide-ranging consultation of all relevant stakeholders, including NGOs, and upon improving the general transparency of the regulatory process, in particular by opening legislative discussions in the Council to public scrutiny. MEPs also stressed the importance of close collaboration between the Member States and the Commission for the purpose of identifying the legislation which should be simplified.

The report welcomed in particular the intention to reduce unnecessary burden on SMEs and said that one of the aims of simplifying the EU's regulatory environment should be to make legislation simpler and more effective and hence more "user-oriented".

MEPs stressed that the repeal of irrelevant and obsolete acts was a priority requirement and that the Commission should act without delay. They also said that codification and recasting were the primary means of simplifying the acquis communautaire and that these should be used more widely. The report added that the institutions might usefully determine whether a third type of operation might be provided for, alongside codification and recasting, so as to afford the most appropriate means of simplifying Community legal acts. The Commission was urged, in the light of all these recommendations, to submit a proposal without delay with a view to recasting the interinstitutional agreements governing the quality of EU legislation.

PE368.068

PE370.257

2718

2716

2715

PE370.306

2711

PE370.157

2707

PE369.937

2705

PURPOSE : to put in place a strategy for the simplification of the regulatory environment in the framework of the Community Lisbon programme.

CONTENT : Following its Communication of March 2005 in which it identified simplification as one priority action for the EU, the Commission presents its strategy to simplify EU-legislation and enhance its quality. The stategy is fully embedded into the revised Lisbon strategy for achieving growth and jobs in Europe and therefore focuses on those elements of the acquis that concern the competitiveness of enterprises in the EU. Its overall objective is to contribute to a European regulatory framework that fulfils the highest standards of law making respecting the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality. Following these principles, the EU should only regulate if a proposed action can be better achieved at EU level. Any such action should not go beyond what is necessary to achieve the policy objectives pursued.

The Commission emphasises that better regulation is not de-regulation. The review of the acquis must become a continuous and systematic process enabling the legislator to revise legislation taking all legitimate private sector and public interests into account. Accordingly, the Commission presents a rolling programme anchored in stakeholders’ practical experience. The programme specifies those pieces of legislation that the Commission envisages reviewing and assessing with the view to simplifying them in the next three years. To pursue the evaluation of the acquis beyond the present simplification programme, the Commission will identify the need for simplification from a sectoral perspective.

Starting with a working programme based on input from the Member States and stakeholders, the Commission will develop its simplification priorities following:

- a comprehensive analysis of selected sectors regarding the impact of legislation, including economic, environmental and social aspects;

- a simplification method drawing on techniques such as repeal, codification, recasting and changing implementing methods;

- a legislative method entailing a clear preference for essential requirements rather than technical specifications, the increased use of co-regulation, the promotion and increased use of information technologies;

- an increased use, as appropriate and on a case by case basis, of regulations instead of directives as well as of review clauses;

In order to secure the implementation of simplification priorities on time, the Commission will streamline its internal working methods to ensure a comprehensive monitoring and follow-up of the simplification process, both at administrative and political level. In addition the Commission will continue to consult regularly with stakeholders on how the simplification programme should be further developed over the coming years.

Considering the need for shared commitment to simplification by the Institutions, the Commission invites the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions to react to this Communication.

COM(2005)0535
EUR-Lex

PURPOSE : to put in place a strategy for the simplification of the regulatory environment in the framework of the Community Lisbon programme.

CONTENT : Following its Communication of March 2005 in which it identified simplification as one priority action for the EU, the Commission presents its strategy to simplify EU-legislation and enhance its quality. The stategy is fully embedded into the revised Lisbon strategy for achieving growth and jobs in Europe and therefore focuses on those elements of the acquis that concern the competitiveness of enterprises in the EU. Its overall objective is to contribute to a European regulatory framework that fulfils the highest standards of law making respecting the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality. Following these principles, the EU should only regulate if a proposed action can be better achieved at EU level. Any such action should not go beyond what is necessary to achieve the policy objectives pursued.

The Commission emphasises that better regulation is not de-regulation. The review of the acquis must become a continuous and systematic process enabling the legislator to revise legislation taking all legitimate private sector and public interests into account. Accordingly, the Commission presents a rolling programme anchored in stakeholders’ practical experience. The programme specifies those pieces of legislation that the Commission envisages reviewing and assessing with the view to simplifying them in the next three years. To pursue the evaluation of the acquis beyond the present simplification programme, the Commission will identify the need for simplification from a sectoral perspective.

Starting with a working programme based on input from the Member States and stakeholders, the Commission will develop its simplification priorities following:

- a comprehensive analysis of selected sectors regarding the impact of legislation, including economic, environmental and social aspects;

- a simplification method drawing on techniques such as repeal, codification, recasting and changing implementing methods;

- a legislative method entailing a clear preference for essential requirements rather than technical specifications, the increased use of co-regulation, the promotion and increased use of information technologies;

- an increased use, as appropriate and on a case by case basis, of regulations instead of directives as well as of review clauses;

In order to secure the implementation of simplification priorities on time, the Commission will streamline its internal working methods to ensure a comprehensive monitoring and follow-up of the simplification process, both at administrative and political level. In addition the Commission will continue to consult regularly with stakeholders on how the simplification programme should be further developed over the coming years.

Considering the need for shared commitment to simplification by the Institutions, the Commission invites the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions to react to this Communication.

COM(2005)0535
EUR-Lex