Nyborg, 14/10/2002 (Agence Europe) - The first informal "Competitiveness" Council, in Nyborg, devoted its work on Saturday to the recurrent theme of simplifying Community legislation. It was a first meeting that Erkki Liikanen did not hesitate to describe as a "fanfare" start. Bendt Bensen, Danish Economy Minister who was in the chair of the Council, also said he was pleased with the quality of discussions. The Presidency's suggestions were welcomed by all Member States and only two suggestions gave rise to reserve about their effective implementation: the creation of a new high level group of the Council responsible for dealing with horizontal competitiveness issues (see EUROPE of 12 October, p.7) and the possibility of exempting SME from certain obligations.
On Saturday, all delegations admitted that improvement to the regulation comes under the responsibility shared between the Community institutions and the Member States and that the "Competitiveness" Council has specific responsibility in the matter, including when it is a question of legislative provisions adopted by other formations, such as the Health or Environment Councils. It also invited these formations to determine the sectors in which legislation would be likely to be simplified. The idea of establishing a working group on improving the regulation was discussed again. Coreper will report on this point during a forthcoming Council. Ministers expressed their determination to make suggestions to the Commission concerning the sectors and measures likely to appear in its multiannual simplification programme expected for the end of this year. They also called for criteria to be developed in order to define the sectors that may lend themselves to legislative simplification.
The ministers agreed that their meeting should proceed, at least once a year, to assessment of the Action Plan for better regulation presented by the Commission in June (see EUROPE of 6 June, p.6), and supported the Presidency's idea whereby clear objectives and effective instruments are needed to ensure follow up. They also encouraged the Commission to develop methods allowing the impact of simplified legislation on companies and citizens to be measured. Above all, the Action Plan states that the Commission must carry out impact assessments for its legislative proposals. On this point, the Council admitted that, if significant amendments are made to the Commission's proposal, then these amendments should also be the subject of an impact assessment. Speaking before the press, Erkki Liikanen felt that impact assessment is the key to simplification, in so far as, if a measure proves too costly, it allows alternatives to be contemplated such as the use of solutions that are other than legislative.
The question of possibly dispensing SME from having to apply a number of provisions, suggested by the Presidency in the aim of easing the administrative charges bearing down on them, will probably have been the most difficult question of the day. Although no delegation exactly rejected the idea, some countries did raise problems that its application could entail in terms of competition. The Commission was invited to present its views. The Presidency, for its part, plans to get back to the drawing board in order to fine tune its initial suggestion and return to the question before the end of the year.
Ministers also held an exchange of views on how appropriate it is to tackle the question of "gold plating" (possibility for the Member States to adopt additional measures in their legislation that are not required by a Community directive) which, according to the Commission and the Presidency, causes unnecessary complication as the aim is to have a high quality European legislation transposed into national legislation of an equivalent quality. Finally, all the delegations recognised the role that new information and communication technologies may play in simplification.
Recalling the progress made on Friday as far as the role of the new "Competitiveness" Council is concerned (see above article), sources close to the Presidency pointed out that ministers had also agreed on the need for more active involvement on the part of the European Parliament in the work on horizontal issues. It appears, on the other hand, that the timeliness of creating a new high level Council group responsible for horizontal issues related to competitiveness was challenged by some delegations which stressed that this idea is in contradiction with the Seville decision to simplify. Without back-pedalling, the Presidency plans to reconsider its idea "from the implementation point of view" and to specify the exact role that such a group would play among the various working groups that already exist within the Council.