Meeting after meeting, EU Member States have repeatedly voiced their concerns about the regulatory burden on European businesses. The subject was even the common thread of the ‘Competitiveness’ Council in Brussels, attended by the EU’s Internal Market and Industry Ministers on Thursday 22 May. In their view, it is becoming crucial to draw up workable legislation and avoid it becoming complicated during negotiations.
They debated the best way to legislate, both at the very beginning of the process at the European Commission and during negotiations in the EU Council. For a large majority of Member States, it is clear that both institutions need to make greater and better use of impact assessments. They regret that the European Commission has not always done so systematically in recent years on certain major texts.
Several delegations also called for the EU Council to produce impact studies during the legislative process, when significant changes are made to texts, i.e. “substantial amendments”.
The Interinstitutional Agreement between the European Parliament, the Commission and the EU Council does provide for impact assessments in the case of substantial amendments, but this principle is not always applied. According to many Member States, this requires a clear definition of what constitutes a “substantial amendment”.
“We need to use the tools at our disposal. We already have 29 ‘checks’ of all kinds”, said Luxembourg’s Minister for the Economy, Lex Delles. In his view, the EU Council also needs to make an effort to compromise on the texts, rather than seeking amendments that suit everyone, but ultimately make the texts more complex.
Again with a view to limiting the negative effects of legislation on economic players, a large number of Member States insisted that they should also be involved as early as possible in the development of policies.
Regarding the idea of stepping up impact studies in the EU Council, the European Commissioner for Industrial Prosperity, Stéphane Séjourné, warned against the proliferation of such studies: “The EU Council may equip itself with the resources it requires to conduct impact assessments. But you can’t, on the one hand, want to move very quickly on procedures and, on the other, want impact studies to be carried out throughout the process”.
Responding to Agence Europe on this balance, he added that the current geopolitical and economic context required “a great deal of agility, flexibility and speed. By adding impact studies, we are slowing down the legislative process, so we need to simplify impact studies”.
Calling into question existing texts. Although Thursday’s debates did not focus specifically on the burden of any particular piece of existing legislation, some laws were nevertheless mentioned when describing the bureaucratic burden for Europeans.
Some Member States, for example, consider that certain rules of the ‘Green Deal’ are at issue. According to Valentino Valentini, Italy’s Deputy Minister for ‘Made in Italy’, the implementation of the ‘Green Deal’ carries the risk of production capacity losses. Legislation, therefore, “is also the art of withdrawal”, he insisted.
The French Minister for Industry, Marc Ferracci, deplored the “continual inflation of legislation” in recent years.
He also confirmed France’s position on creating a Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive for European companies (CSDDD), after French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz spoke out in favour of scrapping the text.
According to the French Minister for European Affairs, Benjamin Haddad, quoted by the media outlet Politico Europe, several countries other than France and Germany wish to abolish the CSDDD.
At a press conference the day before, Commissioner Séjourné said he was prepared to look into this possibility: “We found massive simplifications [on the CSDDD]. Now, if another consensus emerges to take things further, I’m ready to take a look. My colleagues also”.
For his part, Danish Industry Minister Morten Bødskov, whose country will hold the Presidency of the EU Council in July, defended the existence of the Directive. “We think we need to simplify the rules, yes, but we don’t think we need to get rid of everything. Simplification is not deregulation”. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)