MEPs want to boost EU competitiveness through better law-making

AI tools to monitor implementation of EU law and reduce compliance costs

regular impact-assessment and cost-benefit analysis for all major initiatives

meaningful involvement of national parliaments in EU policy making

On Wednesday, the Legal Affairs Committee adopted an own-initiative report evaluating EU law-making in 2023 and 2024.

To improve EU competitiveness, MEPs want the Commission to be more ambitious in reducing regulatory obligations for citizens and businesses by going beyond the “one in, one out“ principle, repealing several legislative instruments while avoiding legislative duplication and overlap. They call on the Commission to map out existing financial and non-financial legislation and administrative obligations for companies under EU and national law, to consider their costs and benefits. They also want a competitiveness check to become a standard practice during the drafting of legislation and encourage the use of regulatory sandboxes to support innovation, reduce compliance costs, and offer legal certainty for SMEs.

Necessary impact assessment

Despite progress made under the better regulation agenda, MEPs say EU legislation still generates a lot of regulatory burden. They regret the Commission’s increasing failure to carry out impact assessment, which can help to inform political decision-making, and stress the need for cost-benefit analyses for all major legislative initiatives. MEPs want the Commission to deploy new artificial intelligence tools to monitor implementation of EU law more efficiently, detect non-compliance earlier and provide faster solutions.

Involvement of national parliaments

MEPs want to ensure the meaningful involvement of national parliaments - natural guardians, they say, of the principle of subsidiarity - in the EU policy-making cycle, including in the scrutiny of delegated and implementing acts and through enhanced cooperation with them through structured digital dialogue platforms. They also want to further support the administrative and technical capacity of member states to improve the timely transposition of directives and implementation of EU law.

The draft report on better law making was adopted by the Legal Affairs Committee with 17 votes in favour, 4 against and 1 abstention.

Quote

Following the committee vote, rapporteur of the Legal Affairs Committee Jörgen Warborn (EPP, SE) said: "I am thrilled by today’s broad majority in favour of more competitive law-making. Europe deserves rules that actually work. Smart regulation is about proportionate, evidence-based regulation that boosts growth rather than stifles it. EU law must be clear, practical, and—above all—designed to genuinely improve the lives of citizens across the EU."

Next steps

This own-initiative report will now be voted on at one of the upcoming plenary sessions.

Background

The aim of the better law-making report is to improve the quality of the legislative process, leading to more effective and easier to follow EU laws. It also assesses how principles of proportionality and subsidiarity are respected in the EU law-making while suggesting improvements strengthening these principles.