Source: European Parliament
The Commission has a clear focus on competitiveness and making business easier and faster in Europe, without undermining the EU’s high standards.
Several tools contribute to this aim. The ‘one in, one out’ approach offsets administrative costs. It acts as a ‘cost brake’ and ensures their consistent downward trend at the level of Commission proposals.
The Commission also set the goal to reduce reporting burden by 25%, accelerating the burden reduction dynamics. It tabled 41 initial proposals in its 2024 work programme[1], with additional measures taken since and included in rationalisation plans for 2024 and after.
The President of the Commission made simplification a key priority for the next College. Each Commissioner, working with the Commissioner for implementation and simplification and the Vice-president for Prosperity and Industry, will stress test the acquis and make proposals to eliminate overlaps, contradictions and be digitally compatible.
They will contribute to reducing reporting obligations by at least 25% — and for small and medium-sized enterprises at least 35%. Each Commissioner will also hold implementation dialogues with stakeholders at least twice per year to identify simplification priorities and present annual progress reports with actions to better enforce, implement and simplify.
This framework ensures effective monitoring of administrative costs and savings, based on Commission proposals. Each impact assessment includes estimates of all compliance costs whenever data are available. The Commission is further finalising its work on the estimation of the overall administrative burden due to EU legislation.
The Commission aims to cooperate also with the European Parliament and the Council to ensure burden reduction is effective in the final legislation. This could be done by each institution assessing the impact of significant amendments based on a simple and clear methodology.
- [1] https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/79628203-f1b5-450d-9d6c-0a2f5374a9dc_en?filename=COM_2023_638_1_EN.pdf