On Thursday 5 February, more than 50 academics from across the EU and also third countries, led by Alberto Alemanno, Professor at HEC Paris, criticised the Commission’s plan to revise the ‘Better Regulation’ framework (see EUROPE 13781/21), arguing that the guidelines envisaged by the Commission “breach EU democratic safeguards and would allow the Commission to sidestep traditional impact assessments and public consultations”.
Such a change “would render EU lawmaking less evidence-based and more susceptible to influence from foreign interests and corporate lobbying”.
“This isn’t regulatory simplification. It is a calculated attempt to institutionalise deregulation through the back door, trading public accountability for a closed-door agenda and quietly dismantling the citizens’ right to shape EU law”, says the Professor.
Among other things, the Commission wants to improve the consultation system and ensure that “European laws are clearer, simpler, easier to implement and transpose, more applicable and less restrictive”, it explained in January. It will also focus on “simplicity by design”.
Link to the response and signatories: https://aeur.eu/f/kly (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)