Thirteen member states are calling on Brussels to systematically design new EU legislation as pro-innovation and assess whether the current laws are still fit for purpose, as part of a broader push to cut red tape and make the bloc more business-friendly.
Austria, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia and Slovakia signed a non-paper calling for “an exercise in legislative deep-cleaning” to determine, sector by sector, whether existing rules are still needed, need updating, or impose burdens without added value.
“EU legislation cannot be an end in itself. Therefore, regulatory restraint to avoid over-regulation and the introduction of new administrative burdens is a condition for sound EU law-making,” reads the Austrian-led paper, obtained by Euronews.
The non-paper was circulated ahead of the launch of a new Alliance for the Reduction of the Bureaucratic Burden expected on Monday, meant to establish a permanent network of EU countries committed to regulatory simplification at the national and European levels.
Regulatory simplification has dominated the EU agenda during Ursula von der Leyen’s second term as European Commission President, driven by both member states and the centre-right European People’s Party.
As a result of this simplification drive, the Commission has proposed a series of “omnibus” packages, spamming from AI rules to climate-related obligations, to reduce and streamline the current EU regulatory patchwork.
The 13 signatories want to go one step further by asking that new EU laws systematically assessed for their impact on economic competitiveness, and only pursued at EU level where objectives cannot be sufficiently achieved nationally, in line with the treaties’ principles of subsidiarity and proportionality.
The document also calls for a “European Implementation and Consolidation Year, primarily focusing on implementation of existing legislation, simplification, interoperability, evaluation of cumulative burden, enforcement convergence, reduction of duplicative reporting obligations, and indispensable legislative amendments.”
The goal, as they put it, is better regulation: EU-level legislation enacted only where Union action is necessary and adds value, designed to be proportionate, coherent, legally predictable and supportive of a business environment where European companies can invest, innovate and grow.
The signatories want the EU to prioritise high-quality, enforceable and predictable legislation over “regulatory density,” while maintaining current protections for health, safety and labour.
“Every major new reporting or compliance obligation should be preceded by a review of existing obligations in the same policy field with a view to consolidation, simplification or repeal,” the paper continues.
Legislation would be judged on whether it is implementable, predictable, coherent with other laws, evidence-based, robust, competitiveness-enhancing and respectful of the split in competences between EU and national levels.
New regulation would also require a mandatory review clause at least every five years, to check whether it has met its objectives.
“It is of the utmost importance to avoid cumulative complexity that risks weakening the effectiveness and as a result the legitimacy of EU action while also reducing the attractiveness of the EU Single Market as a place to do business and invest,” the paper says.