Better Regulation in the European Union Needs a Fresh Start

On January 29, the Breugel (Brussels European and Global Economic Laboratory) think tank published on their web site a policy brief entitled “Better regulation in the European Union needs a fresh start”, by Anne Bucher and Elizabeth Golberg.

The article is devoted to a critical analysis of the statutory regulation in the European Union issuing recommendations on how to improve it.

The European Union continues to face criticism for the volume, complexity, costs and administrative burden of its laws. The stock of new regulation in the EU is growing faster than in other comparable economies. There is no evidence that burden-reduction programmes designed to stem the ever-increasing flow of legislation have had desired effects.

Ursula von der Leyen announced in 2025 a further set of “better regulation” measures, involving simplification, reduction of administrative burden and regulatory budgeting. But these actions closely resemble previous initiatives.

All metrics point to an increasing number of Commission proposals and continued high rates of adoption of new laws. In 2014-2019 the amount of regulation grew by 173 acts, and in 2019-2024 - by 196 acts.

In recent years, about 60 percent of Eurocommission proposals have been accompanied by impact assessments. However, proposals made during emergencies (including the war in Ukraine, COVID-19, spikes in illegal migration and financial crises), escape this procedure.

In an increasingly complex, volatile and polarised political environment, better regulation is essential.

The Regulatory Scrutiny Board described the following weaknesses in the impact assessments:

· Weak justification of the need for legislation;

· Unclear content and unsubstantiated impacts;

· A lack of analysis of impacts on SMEs;

· A lack of alternative options other than legislation as a preferred instrument;

· Incoherence between legislation, such as non-aligned thresholds for reporting and due-diligence requirements, which make compliance costly;

· The coexistence of sectoral and general legislation, resulting in overlaps and duplication of obligations;

· Ignoring the need for consistent EU and international reporting standards.

Evaluations of legislation are weak, often ill-timed, and with questionable impact on further policy development. They lack evidence and relevant data.

Recommendations

1. The European Commission needs to make a high-level commitment to better regulation, with a designated commissioner (Vice President for example) with the authority to exercise discipline and restraint in making proposals, simplify where possible and ensure coherence between policy areas.

2. It would seem appropriate to have the responsibility for better regulation (from strategic planning through impact assessment, consultation, evaluation and implementation) in a dedicated single mandate.

3. There is a need for an inter-institutional mechanism to assess amendments proposed in the process of joint decision-making, to ensure methodological harmonization with the Commission impact assessment, and to make evaluations after the laws are passed.

4. Establish an internal centre of analytical support as the dedicated centre for regulatory analysis (including cost/benefit, modelling and use of artificial intelligence) for all impact assessments and for validation of impact assessments and ex-post evaluation methodologies.

5. New ways should be explored to ensure quality and consistency between analyses, foster and maintain data and evidence bases, and introduce artificial intelligence tools.

6. Recommendation 6: Outsourcing ex-post evaluations. There is a need to empower an external body as a centre for evaluation and expertise. Such an external body could involve the different levels of governance, take a multi-stakeholder perspective, better consider the inter-institutional responsibilities for legislation and avoid political influence.

7. EU countries should contribute to evaluations, for example, by evaluating some pieces of legislation as case studies. Importantly, they should also identify and assess the costs at national level and initiate cost reduction efforts there.