Not all officials at the European Commission have spent the summer struggling with the Greek bailout saga. Some have been quietly working to implement President Jean-Claude Juncker’s Better Regulation plan to cut red tape and streamline the policymaking process.

The plan is supposed to become the working method for a European Union “big on big things and small on small things,” as Juncker promised when he took office last November.

Its main changes include a Regulatory Scrutiny Board to monitor impact assessments, new tools for EU legislative checks such as an online consultation platform, an annual work program that looks at whether to withdraw legislative proposals, and an agreement to revise the lawmaking process between EU institutions.

The Commission is in a hurry to implement its plans before the end of the year by reaching an agreement with the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. But some of its internal changes have already been in place since the beginning of July.

New faces

The Commission this month launched the Regulatory Scrutiny Board. The panel, which will offer guidance to other EU institutions on legislation, will be chaired by Marianne Klingbeil, a former Commission deputy secretary general.

A close ally of outgoing Secretary General Catherine Day, Klingbeil has been working closely on the better regulation portfolio in the Commission since 2007.

The Commission is looking to appoint other members of the board. On July 7, the College of Commissioners approved the hiring process and has begun to look for candidates among existing staff and externally. Seven positions will be posted soon on the Better Regulation website.

Informally, Commission First Vice President Frans Timmermans’ cabinet has promised to ensure balance on the panel by hiring one member from the business sector, another from a non-governmental organization or trade union and a third from research or academia.

“The main objective of such a board is to be independent,” said Michael Gibbons, chairman of the Regulatory Policy Committee in the U.K., which was established in 2008 to carry out legislative reviews in an effort to cut red tape.

Nevertheless, the task force has attracted criticism from some NGOs and politicians, who fear it may endorse the scrapping of social and environmental legislation.

Some NGOs are also complaining that the Commission’s new consultation website, which gathers comments and feedback from the public on legislative proposals and existing policies, will lead it to overlook and bypass other input and expertise from trade unions, NGOs and watchdogs.

“Basically with such a platform, the Commission can do whatever it wants,” said one trade union official who requested anonymity.

A group of more than 50 unions and NGOs have set up an organization called Better Regulation Watchdog, to “challenge the widely-held belief that regulation is a burden for society.”

Power grab?

Talks on the Better Regulation agreement between EU legislative bodies and the Commission started in the margins of a summit held by EU leaders on June 25. The next round of talks begins this September but all three institutions have been working in July to sharpen their arguments.

Timmermans for the Commission, Guy Verhofstadt for the Parliament and Nicolas Schmit for the Luxembourg presidency will handle the talks.

Timmermans expects a deal by the end of the year “but everything will depend on the behavior of the Parliament during the negotiations,” said one EU diplomat in the Council of Ministers.

The Luxembourg presidency has put the negotiations at the top of its agenda. But the initial talks in the Council of Ministers were vague and non-committal, according to diplomatic sources, as ambassadors were focused on other topics such as migration and Greece.

MEPs, meanwhile, are divided on the issue. They recognize the need to improve transparency in the negotiations between EU institutions, and the need to cut red tape to help small businesses.

“I understood the Better Regulation necessity, but I am still wary that lawmakers are voting on decisions imposed by experts,” said Green MEP Pascal Durand.

But the Commission has taken pains to reassure critics.

“Better regulation does not mean weak regulation, but less regulation,” said Juncker at a joint press conference with Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament.

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Leaving the European Union means there won’t be a bad cop anymore to hold the British government to account on the environment.

That role is currently played by the European Commission and the European Court of Justice, but campaigners and environmental law experts worry that without them, nature protection in the U.K. could suffer.

Currently, about 80 percent of U.K. environmental rules are shaped in Brussels, according to a report by the British House of Commons environmental audit committee. Crucial legislation includes EU laws protecting wild species and their habitats or setting reduction targets for smog-causing air pollutants.

Under EU rules, national authorities must plan and report to the European Commission on, for instance, air pollution levels in their cities. The Commission acts as a regulator and a watchdog, and takes laggards to the European Court of Justice, where EU governments that aren’t following the rules face fines and legal action.

The U.K. is currently one of five countries facing a legal challenge over its air pollution levels. The Commission also took it to court over poor urban waste water treatment and its failure to protect marine species covered by EU nature laws.

Environmentalists worry that if the U.K. fails to comply in areas like air quality or water standards, the EU will also suffer because pollution crosses borders.

The European Parliament’s environment committee is pushing for any Brexit deal to “include a mechanism to ensure that the U.K. is bound to avoid damage to the EU environment … ensuring no weakening of current protection levels,” according to internal documents seen by POLITICO.

That could include an “arbitration mechanism … to ensure enforcement in the U.K.” and coordination with the rest of the EU for future legislation.

European Court a red line

Prime Minister Theresa May insists that the European Court of Justice will have no jurisdiction over the U.K. after Brexit.

“We will take back control of our laws and bring an end to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice in Britain. Leaving the European Union will mean that our laws will be made in Westminster, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast,” she said earlier this year.

Nature campaigners are worried existing rules will become “zombie legislation” — no longer enforced or updated in line with the latest science.

“From an enforcement and institutional perspective, what do you do about the gap left by not having the Commission and ECJ having oversight?” asked Karla Hill, of environmental law charity ClientEarth.

Bodies such as the U.K. Environment Agency currently make sure businesses abide by nature laws. But the EU provides the legal and institutional framework for oversight of the government’s actions. “The question is whether and how we replace it,” said professor Maria Lee, an expert in EU environmental law at University College London (UCL).

Who ends up stepping into the Commission’s shoes to oversee the government remains to be seen, but it will have to be “some kind of body that is properly independent, empowered and resourced to hold the government to account,” said Hill.

If the government breaches the law, the question then becomes who takes it to court; and without the ECJ it will have to be before a national court. Another concern is that the British judicial system is not adequately equipped to deal with these cases.

“What we will rely upon is judicial review [the procedure through which British courts supervise public action] and, basically, NGOs to bring their actions,” Richard Macrory, professor of environmental law at UCL, told the House of Lords’ European Union committee.

But Macrory said judicial reviews are currently very expensive and time-consuming. Relying only on NGOs suing is also problematic. “We will have to consider creating some form of environmental ombudsman or somebody to be investigating some of these cases, if not, perhaps, to take the litigation,” he said.

Making rules

And then there’s the issue of just which rules regulators will be enforcing.

The challenge is going to be turning more than 1,100 EU environmental laws into national legislation, something that will be part of a much wider Great Repeal Bill transposing EU rules into U.K. law.

The government expects to have difficulties in transposing about a third of the nature legislation, Andrea Leadsom, secretary of state for environment, told the House of Commons environmental audit committee. Civil servants are currently meeting once or twice a week to deal with the issue.

The government says it is committed to provide “certainty and stability” for nature laws, and insists that leaving the EU won’t create any gap in their regulation and enforcement.

“We are committed to publishing a long-term plan that builds on our long history of wildlife and environmental protection, and sets out a new approach to managing the environment,” said Daniel Barnes, spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

But some British lawmakers are not convinced that there are checks in place to hold the government to its word. “The government’s assurances that future governments will, in effect, be able to regulate themselves … are worryingly complacent,” said the report from the House of Lords, which debates Brexit and its environmental implications Thursday.

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An intra-party battle over a controversial provision of the EU-US trade agreement threatens to undo fragile support for the deal in the European Parliament.

With only a few days remaining before the Parliament’s June 10 vote on whether to approve the EU’s position on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), members of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists & Democrats (S&D), the second largest group in the assembly, are wrestling over their position.

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Two separate S&D factions have failed to agree on how strongly to oppose a controversial provision that lets foreign investors sue national governments for financial compensation if a change in law affects their holdings.

If the S&D MEPs cannot settle on a position on the so-called Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) proposal before next week’s plenary session, Parliament’s support for the whole trade deal could be threatened.

The current proposed resolution on ISDS, agreed by S&D and European People’s Party (EPP) members last week in the Parliament’s International Trade Committee, would phase out the ISDS provision, and move toward Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström’s idea of a “permanent solution” for resolving disputes between investors and states.

But the S&D group has now rejected the text approved last week, by a vote of 29-10, in the trade panel. The group clearly wants changes, yet is split over whether to adopt a hardline position on ISDS or to include minor changes in a compromise with the conservative parties, including the EPP.

The ISDS provision has recently complicated talks between European and American negotiators. Standard in many trade agreements, the measure authorizes companies to sue public authorities in ad-hoc arbitration tribunals, instead of going through national jurisdictions to seek damages and compensation.

On Wednesday, a majority of the S&D group supported an amendment proposed by Bernd Lange, a German MEP who chairs the International Trade Committee. Lange’s amendment suggests a “permanent solution” for resolving disputes between investors and states “without the use of the ISDS private arbitration.”

But another block of S&D MEPs, supported by other, smaller left-leaning party groups — including the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD), the European United Left-Nordic Green Left (GUE-NGL) and the Greens — submitted another amendment to the committee-approved text. This text would “oppose the inclusion of ISDS in TTIP” altogether, but enforce investment protection with other options “such as domestic remedies.”

“By domestic remedies, we mean public courts and tribunals,” said Maria Arena, a Belgian member of the S&D party who signed the amendment. “We can rely on our stable jurisdictions. We are the biggest trade area in the world and, apart from Eastern European countries, we’ve never had ISDS.”

Arena added that the amendment had received 150 signatures, of which 66 came from the S&D.

For David Borrelli, a MEP member of the EFDD group who sits on the trade committee, “This decision is not going to be based on the political groups. It is based on single individuals and nationalities, so it is difficult to assess the outcome in a situation like this.”

Wednesday’s vote is crucial for the negotiations on TTIP over the longer term. Though the Parliament itself only observes the negotiations, the final trade deal must be approved by the assembly. The Commission therefore needs the Parliament on its side.

But a complete dismissal of ISDS is likely to provoke outrage in the US, where it is a standard tool for investment protection.  

“ISDS is a sticking point,” said Charles de Marcilly, a political analyst and director of the Robert Schuman Foundation in Brussels. “It’s the Parliament’s role to alert and set red lights for the Commission if the proposed TTIP law doesn’t go in the right direction.”

But a parliamentary resolution on TTIP could only achieve the desired impact if it is voted with “a stable majority,” the German MEP Daniel Caspary of the European People’s Party said. With the current split in the S&D, the opposite could happen — or the resolution could fail completely.

Last week’s vote in the trade committee was seen as a milestone for the Parliament’s support for the trade deal. That show of support included agreement on an ISDS reform proposal recently pitched by Malmström as a basis for “a permanent solution for resolving disputes between investors and states … where potential cases are treated in a transparent manner by publicly appointed, independent professional judges in public hearings and which includes an appellate mechanism,” ensuring “a consistency of judicial decisions [and respecting] the jurisdiction of courts of the EU and of the Member States.”

The compromise also included a weakened call for the creation of an international trade court to hear investment dispute cases. The final text says that “in the medium term, a public International Investment Court could be the most appropriate means to address investment disputes.”

To reach the agreement, the S&D faction backed down from its original rejection of the ISDS mechanism. In return, the EPP accepted language submitted by the Socialists stating that the Parliament takes “into account the EU’s and the US’ developed legal systems … to provide effective legal protection based on the principle of democratic legitimacy, efficiently and in a cost-effective manner.”

“The compromise struck in the International Trade Committee is a good one,” said Frank Proust, a French MEP from the EPP group. “It states clearly that the old form of ISDS arbitration should not be included into TTIP.”

Said Proust, “We want to create a trade standard with TTIP that applies to all future agreements such as Vietnam, Singapore or eventually China.”

In recent months, the Commission has had to change its position on the investor court under pressure from the Parliament.

TTIP, if agreed, would affect more than 800 million people in Europe and the United States and about two thirds of the world’s richest countries. The goal is to spur a transatlantic market by making exports, imports and investments easier, while jump-starting growth.

“Discussions are still ongoing,” said Lange. “Our aim remains to ensure that a broad majority will support this resolution.”