Brussels, 01/10/2002 (Agence Europe) - On Monday, the "Competitiveness" Council adopted conclusions on regulatory simplification and took stock of the Cardiff process and the implementation of the mutual recognition principle.
On the basis of the Commission's Communication in June on "European governance: better legislation" and the action plan on regulatory simplification, the Council conclusions invited the European Commission to take care over of the preparatory phase of the texts. The Council welcomes actions proposed by the Commission for systematic consultation of the parties interested and for carrying out a proportional analysis of the impact of all major initiatives, including legislative proposals. It calls, in this respect, on the Commission to foresee a wider consultation period than the minimum six weeks proposed. From 2003, the Commission is to join these impact analyses to all its proposals and the Council announces its intention, in principle, not to examine the proposals that do not have a proportionate impact assessment covering, among other things, the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. Internal Market Commissioner Frits Bolkestein, however, warned ministers of the risk that things could become blocked if assessments were to become systematic, as such assessments are time-consuming. He remarked that the Commission is proposing good texts that become complicated after they have gone through Council, not to mention the national, regional and local transpositions. In practice, the Council welcomes the Commission's intention to form a representative and permanent panel of European enterprises whose opinion would be requested for major projects, and invites it to make the results of the consultations available from 2003. On the other hand, it encourages the Member States to continue improving consultation and impact assessment procedures and to ensure that Community directives are correctly transposed into their national legislation within the time set. It welcomes in this respect the Commission's initiative to make a single electronic and effective access point available to Member States for notifying transpositions. The Competitiveness Council of 14 and 15 November will make a more detailed assessment of implementation of the action plan on legislative simplification and the Commission is expected to present an overall assessment of the plan's implementation before end 2005.
Furthermore, the Council approved suggestions presented by the Council's working group on the methods for following-up the process of reform of the Single Market, the so-called Cardiff process. Thus, the Competitiveness Council should assess, at the beginning of each year, the progress made in structural reforms, and identify the remaining barriers and the priorities for political initiatives. It will present a contribution to the Spring European Council.
The ministers noted the Commission's report on the implementation of the principle of mutual recognition and welcomed its intention to adopt guidelines in order to facilitate the use of this principle for its national administrations and operators.