Enter the simplification agenda, Brussels’ new plan to get the best of both worlds.
Cutting red tape is one of the few areas of policymaking on which EU countries largely agree; in fact, they want more of it. Later this week, European leaders meeting in Brussels will instruct the European Commission to speed up its work “as a matter of utmost priority, on all files with a simplification and competitiveness dimension,” according to draft conclusions obtained by POLITICO.
Driving home that message, 19 EU leaders — including Friedrich Merz of Germany, Emmanuel Macron of France, Giorgia Meloni of Italy and Donald Tusk of Poland — have issued a presummit appeal for “a systematic review of all EU regulations to identify rules that are superfluous, excessive, or unbalanced.”
In a letter, obtained by POLITICO, they also called on Brussels to dismantle outdated rules, demanded a “constant stream” of simplification measures and urged self-restraint when it comes to new legislation.
Still, the simplification drive is being spun as a way to address some of Washington’s concerns with what it sees as regulatory overreach by Brussels.
“Since Trump is willing to swallow a number of jokes — he doesn’t look too closely at it anyway — if we can say to him, ‘Donald, thank you very much, it’s thanks to you that we’ve cleaned things up a bit,’ why not?” asked Pascal Lamy, a former EU trade commissioner and head of the World Trade Organization.
Sweeping rollback
In a bid to bring struggling European industries back from the brink, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has made deregulation — or “simplification” — the North Star of her second term. In less than 12 months, her Commission has come up with plans to cut much of the red tape crafted during her first mandate, touching on almost all areas of EU law, from defense and agriculture to digital rules and the environment.