Better regulation, the set of principles and tools that the European Commission uses in shaping EU legislation, has been a key feature of EU policy making for almost 20 years and is one of the most advanced systems in the world, the European Court of Auditors (ECA) said, on Thursday 30 July, in a new report.
Aiming to ensure that EU legislation and decisions are transparent, open to input from citizens and stakeholders and evidence-based, while ensuring that regulatory burdens are minimised, better regulation “ must remain at the heart of EU law-making, for the benefit of our citizens and businesses”, stressed Pietro Russo, the member of the Court responsible for the report.
While the ECA “welcomes the results of the Commission’s stocktaking exercise” on the approach to better regulation, it nevertheless faces a number of key challenges which it believes should be taken into account when this approach is reviewed in the years to come.
In its view, the Commission should in particular: (1) Ensure that EU policies and legislative initiatives are subject to sufficient consultation and impact assessment before decisions are taken, supported by good quality information, evaluation and impact assessment ; (2) monitoring the implementation of a policy while it is in progress and evaluating its effects after its completion and the implementation of EU legislation and its application in the Member States; (3) further simplifying EU legislation ; (4) improving the transparency of the legislative process for citizens and other stakeholders by, for example, increasing the visibility and accessibility of public consultations.
See the report: https://bit.ly/2PbwF5U (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)