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At the end of 2024, the EU institutions adopted the Political Guidelines for 2024-29, with the forward-looking and innovative policies to make Europe a “more desirable place to live, work and invest”. At the same time, the guidelines suggested “radical reduction” in the regulatory load for people, businesses, national governance, as well as in boosting prosperity and resilience. Hence, the Commission proposed “unprecedented regulatory simplification” to unleash opportunities, innovations and growth; though only time will tell the proposal’s realization.
Background
The Commission has launched a new drive to speed up, simplify and improve EU policies and laws, make rules clearer and easier to understand and faster to implement. Besides, strengthening the EU’s competitiveness would require “a legal environment that stimulates business’ creation and growth, protects and empowers people in the simplest, fastest and most effective way”.
At the same time the simplification would be coupled with achieving socio-economic and environmental goals by the most cost-efficient means.
More in European Commission: Political Guidelines 2024-2029, in: https://commission.europa.eu/priorities-2024-2029_en
The Commission sets out the plan for the implementation and simplification that delivers “fast and visible improvements” for people, businesses as well as the prosperous and resilient EU. E.g. the Omnibus packages which was outlined in the 2025 Commission Work Program would be the “first deliverables” of the EU’s agenda, to include an “ambition of stress-testing” of the whole existing EU legislation’s files (in close cooperation with practitioners and stakeholders).
The Commission’s approach to implementation and simplification is guided by taking into consideration the past efforts, “navigating the present and shaping the future”. Thus, e.g. in order to achieve the guidelines’ objectives, the Commission “will simplify existing rules wherever necessary and ensure that they are better implemented: i.e. to review and adapt the EU’s regulatory framework to “make it more responsive” to the social and corporate needs. The Commission will give “due consideration to better law-making principles and legal certainty when making simplification proposals” the new “better regulation and simplification tools” will ensure that future laws are designed “with implementation and simplification in mind right from the outset”.
Source and citations from: European Commission. “A simpler and faster Europe: Communication on implementation and simplification”. In: https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/8556fc33-48a3-4a96-94e8-8ecacef1ea18_en?filename=250201_Simplification_Communication_en.pdf
Implementation means
To translate the new drive into practical action, the mentioned Commission suggested using the following tools and actions: a) new targets to reduce the administrative burden; b) prioritising new simplification measures; c) gradual stress-testing of the body of EU legislation; d) a simpler, more focused and more impactful EU budget; and e) hands-on experience by conducting reality checks. To ensure sustained and measurable efforts for the coming years, the Commission had set the targets to reduce reporting burdens by at least 25% for all companies and 35% for SMEs, without undermining the policy objectives. However, reporting costs are only a subset of administrative costs and, based on the feedback received, the Commission considered necessary to follow a more holistic approach: i.e. to apply “the burden reduction targets to a baseline of all administrative costs”.
Since the 25% burden reduction target was announced in March 2023, the Commission proposed measures that were to save about € 5 billion. It is the responsibility of the European Parliament and the Council to maintain or, where possible, strengthen the burden reduction potential of Commission proposals during the legislative negotiations, and of the member states to avoid gold plating in national transpositions or application of EU law.
Note. Companies facing legal or administrative barriers in a EU state can report the obstacles via https://fosmo.youreurope.europa.eu/ and business associations or other organisations with several companies can contact grow-single-digital-gateway@ec.europa.eu to report barriers. They can first get personalised help and advice through https://asf.youreurope.europa.eu/. Thus, e.g. 41 “simplified initiatives” were adopted during the 2024 Commission work program, including complex simplification package for agriculture. These savings were estimated using the EU standard cost model.
Prioritizing new simplification measures
“Better regulation communication” (adopted in November 2021 a is a reflection of the EU-wide policy-making’s approach to burden reduction by the regulatory means) was based on the results of the Commission-2019 discussions on “stocktaking the better regulation” policy. Thus, the Commission suggested the following “regulatory instruments” for the “better regulation” policy, i.e. “creating legislation that achieves its objectives while being targeted, effective and easy to comply with”:
= comprehensive evaluations and fitness checks involve thorough analysis of how existing legislation and spending programs have been performing, to check that they are efficient, effective, relevant and coherent, and that EU-level intervention is actually adding value;
= impact assessments look at the problems to be tackled, the objectives to be achieved, the trade-offs to consider, options for action and their potential impacts;
= input from stakeholders supports this work throughout the policy cycle, to
provide policymakers with the best possible evidence base; and
= compliance promotion tools help the EU member states transpose, implement and apply the EU law in a timely and correct manner.
The guidelines and the toolbox should be applied in a proportionate manner using common sense: the aim -as Commission notes- is “not to meet procedural requirements per se but to ensure that the Commission has relevant and timely information on which to base decisions”. Similarly, the depth of analysis should reflect the significance of the impacts or effects that a given initiative or intervention may have within and outside the EU.
Reference and citations from: Commission staff paper “Better regulation: joining forces to make better laws”. (COM-2021- 219 final); and Commission Communication “Better regulation: taking stock and sustaining our commitment”, in COM -2019- 178 final. In: https://commission.europa.eu/law/law-making-process/better-regulation/better-regulation-guidelines-and-toolbox_en
The better regulation guidelines-2021 set out the principles that the European Commission follows when preparing new initiatives and proposals and when managing and evaluating existing legislation. It is to be mentioned that the guidelines are “internal instructions for the Commission staff” (hence, it is called “the Commission staff document’) in order to deliver the objectives of ‘better regulation’; in so far as they formulate ‘requirements’ and/or ‘mandatory’ instructions, they cannot be construed as legally binding rules or legal commitments towards outside actors and stakeholders; hence, the guidelines should be applied by all Commission officials involved in regulatory activities. The guidelines apply to each phase of the law-making cycle.
The 2025 Commission work program has had a stronger focus on simplification than ever before. It includes a series of Omnibus packages and other simplification proposals to tackle priority areas identified with stakeholders over the past years. The European Parliament and the Council were invited to consider fast-tracking these files, acting on the simplification proposals without reopening other parts of the legislation, to provide maximum and swift clarity and relief to companies. This “work program” will continue to dominate in the simplification process/measures in future.
Several so-called “omnibus packages” and other simplification proposals were adopted during 2024, to maximise the simplification drive by addressing interactions between different pieces of economic sectors’ legislation. The are including, inter alia, the following spheres:
• Omnibus package on sustainability. This proposal will cover a far-reaching simplification in the fields of sustainable finance reporting, sustainability due diligence and taxonomy. It will ensure better alignment of the requirements with the needs of investors, proportionate timelines, financial metrics that do not discourage investments in smaller companies in transition, and obligations proportionate to the scale of activities of different companies. It will notably address the trickle-down effect to prevent smaller companies along the supply chains from being subjected in practice to excessive reporting requests that were never intended by the legislators. The carbon border adjustment mechanism requirements will be eased to the benefit of smaller importers, specifically for SMEs and authorities.
• Omnibus package on investment simplification. This package will facilitate, among others, the deployment of InvestEU plan and the European Fund for Strategic Investments, and simplify reporting.
• Omnibus package, including on small mid-caps and removal of paper requirements. This Omnibus package will ensure that small mid-caps companies will also have adapted requirements and it will remove inefficient requests for paper format in product legislation.
• Digital package. The review of the Cybersecurity Act and simplification of cybersecurity legislation will ensure simplified and more agile means to facilitate multiple-purpose reporting to avoid duplications. This will form part of the broader assessment, during the first year of the mandate, of whether the expanded digital acquis adequately reflects the needs and constraints of businesses such as SMEs and small midcaps, going beyond necessary guidance and standards that facilitate compliance29. Among others, a European Data Union Strategy will address existing data rules to ensure a simplified, clear and coherent legal framework for businesses and administrations to share data seamlessly and at scale, while respecting high privacy and security standards.
• Common Agricultural Policy simplification. This package will address sources of complexity and excessive administrative burden for farmers and national administrations in managing, monitoring and reporting, also leveraging the potential of digitalisation. On top of these proposals, other initiatives in the work program will simplify legislation to streamline permit granting, authorisations and reporting requirements. These include the Industrial Decarbonisation Accelerator Act that will extend accelerated permitting to more sectors in transition or the targeted revision of the EU’s rules on chemicals (REACH) will simplify rules for the chemicals industry without compromising on health, safety and
environmental protection.
Besides, the digital initiatives will contribute to simplification and implementation across all EU-wide policy domains: building on the “general digital wallet” system, the Commission put forward the European Business Wallet program to enable businesses to manage national, cross-border and EU regulatory requirements, notifications, and compliance processes in one place and in a user-friendly way. Further simplification proposals will be explored, including a possible omnibus in the area of defense to help reach the investment goals that will be set out in the White Paper and to allow innovative companies to flourish.
While proposals on full repeal of existing legislation or to withdraw pending proposals may also be motivated by other considerations (obsolescence of certain rules, lack of political progress on long-standing proposals), simplification and cost-effectiveness considerations can often apply in such instances as well.
EU legislation: gradual stress-testing
The Commission work program-2025 also includes a first list of evaluations of individual laws or of whole policy areas (fitness checks), kicks-tarting a process to stress-test the stock of EU legislation. These will look critically at the potential to simplify and focus on finding opportunities to reduce costs and consolidate rules, taking particular account of the challenges of SMEs. The results will feed into the next round of simplification packages, in a virtuous circle.
Stress-testing will be a continuous process to screen EU legislation. The aim is to ultimately review the entire EU’s acquis to capture its cumulative impacts, potential inconsistencies and simplify it, while more efficiently achieving its policy objectives. Each Commissioner will ensure the stress-testing of the legislation within their areas of responsibility, under the steer of the Commissioner for Implementation and Simplification. Based on this process, concrete simplification measures will be included in the Commission work program each year.
Improving the law-making procedure
As important as it is to simplify existing rules, it is also essential that new legislation is simple, easy to understand and implement, clearly drafted and unambiguous. Implementation and enforcement issues need to be considered from the moment when the Commission designs its proposals, as set out in the Better Regulation guidelines and toolbox, and throughout the legislative process.
The EU can build its strategy on the better regulation approach, recognised as among the best in the OECD, including consultations, evaluations and impact assessments. It also benefits from the work of the Regulatory Scrutiny Board, which ensures the high quality of evidence underpinning legislative proposals.
Nevertheless, most companies (and SMEs, in particular) have seen regulatory requirements and their cumulative impact as the greatest challenge to setting up and growing their business. This requires strengthened examination of the impacts of intended new legislation on competitiveness, SMEs and start-ups as well as small mid-caps. It also merits more careful consideration by the EU institutions of the impact of their amendments during the legislative process: closer scrutiny of the terms of empowerments inserted in legislation, and subsequently of relevant delegated and implementing acts will also be necessary.
To tackle these challenges, a new approach to the legislative process is needed, through: a) reinforced SME and competitiveness checks, b) scrutiny of delegated and implementing acts, and related empowerments, c) smart and digital delivery integrated in the design of EU laws, and d) a simple methodology to assess the impact of significant amendments
Within the annual implementation and simplification cycle, the Commission has suggested the following steps in simplification:
▪ Commissioners launch process of at least two implementation dialogues a year.
▪ Commissioners prepare annual progress reports on enforcement and implementation.
▪ Commissioners meet Parliament Committees and Council configurations to present reports and simplification work.
▪ Commissioners start preparation of simplification measures to be presented in the Commission Work Program.
▪ Annual Overview Reports on Implementation and Simplification will be published.
▪ Adoption of Commission Work Program, including significant simplification measures and annual plan of fitness checks and evaluations, as part of the stress test, will be desired.
EU’s co-legislators in creating simpler and effective EU rules
The European Parliament and the Council have a central role to play in creating simple and effective rules at the lowest administrative cost for people and companies. In 2016, both institutions committed to the principle of assessing the impacts of their substantial amendments when appropriate. This can include amendments that increase costs, create the risk of additional adverse impacts or significantly reduce the simplification potential of a Commission proposal (however, the European Parliament and the Council do not do so in practice). The Commission therefore calls on the European Parliament and the Council to put in place the necessary processes and resources. While amendments cannot be subject to a full impact assessment given the tight time-frame of negotiations, it should be possible for each institution to use a simple methodology to assess their costs, as mentioned earlier. Good implementation and simplification are a joint endeavor involving all EU institutions throughout the whole legislative process. Simplification measures should therefore be clearly identified and recognised by the co-legislators, so that they can be handled in a focused way with priority to ensure that the benefits of simplification are delivered swiftly.
The Commission intends working closely together with Parliament and Council to include the “renewed” inter-institutional Agreement on Better Lawmaking to clarify the best achieving means for the envisioned goals.
Sources: a) Better Law-Making – Agreement between EU institutions, in: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/summary/better-law-making-agreement-between-eu-institutions.html; b) https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/summary/better-law-making-agreement-between-eu-institutions.html (April 2016); c) on agreement to optimise the development and application of EU law, in: https://www.cvce.eu/en/obj/interinstitutional_agreement_on_better_law_making_16_december_2003-en-52343ac0-5de6-4f07-a4a8-971e34a072d5.html (2003).