The summer of better regulation

The Commission is implementing its plan to streamline legislation.

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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