An EU Agenda «Better Regulation for Better Results»: First Results and Conclusions


  • Oleksandr RUDIK Dnipropetrovsk Regional Institute for Public Administration National Academy for Public Administration under the President of Ukraine
Keywords: Europeanization, government regulation, democratic governance, better regulation, regulatory policy, European experience

Abstract

The article examines the experience of the EU and its Member States on better government regulation. At the beginning of its five-year term, the J.-K. Juncker’s Europan Commission had been committed to achieving better results for EU citizens and businesses, and thus to build trust in the Union’s institutions. To this end, the results and conclusions drawn by the European Commission on the first steps in implementing the EU Agenda «Better regulation for better results» are analyzed. In the course of this stocktaking exercise, we have reviewed the literature, consulted publicly, and sought the views of the other institutions and bodies as well as those of the Commission departments who integrate better regulation in their daily work. The Commission concludes that the first lessons learned from the experience of implementing better regulation are as follows: there is the appreciation of better regulation among the EU Member States and the demand for its continued application and further improvement; better regulation principles should be an integral part of the institutional culture of any public authority having the type of duties entrusted to the European Commission; better regulation tools and procedures are there to support political decision-making, not to substitute it; better regulation practices are not cost-free, since they imply investment in terms of monetary and human resources and they increase the time needed to prepare an initiative for adoption, given the formal requirements of the policy process; the Commission’s stocktaking has once again confirmed that, to be successful, better regulation must be a shared effort. As the tools and processes deployed by the Commission improve, further advances increasingly rest upon improvements the Commission can facilitate but not ensure by itself. The article also presents the results of the Flash Eurobarometer Report on businesses perceptions on regulation. It is concluded that the European Union has become a key standard-setter in areas such as consumer protection, competition, and workplace safety. At the same time, EU Member States remain important policy makers by setting their own domestic regulations as well as through their role in shaping EU laws.

References

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Published
2020-11-17
Section
Статті