Communication from the Commission - The implementation of the framework action "Updating and simplifying the Community Acquis" {SEC(2004) 774}
Date: 2004-06-16
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: Community acquis, corpus juris (EU)

COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES 

Brussels, 16.6.2004 
COM(2004) 432 final 

COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION 

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE FRAMEWORK ACTION "UPDATING AND 
SIMPLIFYING THE COMMUNITY ACQUIS" 

{SEC(2004) 774} 

EN 

   EN 

 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION 

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE FRAMEWORK ACTION "UPDATING AND 
SIMPLIFYING THE COMMUNITY ACQUIS" 

The present Communication takes stock of the implementation of the Commission’s February 
2003 Framework for Action on “Updating and simplifying the Community Acquis”1.  

This initiative is one of the range of actions in its “Better Regulation” initiative of June 20022 
which  aims  to  secure  a  clear,  effectiveup-to-date  and  user-friendly  body  of  secondary 
Community law and responds also to the objective to improve the regulatory environment in 
which  business  operate  to  enhance  competitiveness  as  one  of  the  goal  set  out  in  the  Lisbon 
strategy.  New  Community  legislation  is  now  increasingly  subject  to  an  integrated  impact 
assessment.  The  present  initiative  on  “Updating  and  simplifying  the  Community  Acquis” 
complements this by focusing on simplifying and up-dating the stock of existing legislation.  

The  second  progress  report,  attached  to  the  present  Communication3,  provides  a  detailed 
account  of  progress  realised  during  Phase  II  (October  2003  -  March  2004)  and  sets  out 
planned  action  during  Phase  III  (April  –  December  2004),  thereby  up-dating  the 
Commission’s rolling programme for up-date and simplification4. 

The preparation of the present report coincides with increased attention on better regulation in 
general and simplification in particular in the EU and in Member States. This is reflected in 
the Joint Initiative on Regulatory Reform of 26 January 2004 by the 4 Council Presidencies in 
2004 and 2005, in the conclusions of the Spring European Council and in the on-going work 
of Council. 

In response of this renewed political momentum, the Commission is committed to strengthen 
its  work  on  up-dating  and  simplifying  the  Community  acquis  but  without  fundamentally 
changing the broad base of the framework of action adopted in February 2003.  

The  Commission  launched  in  February  2003  a  consultation  of  the  other  institutions  and 
Member  States  on  the  proposed  framework  of  action  but  received  very  little  response.  It 
therefore  welcomes  the  commitment  made  by  the  European  Council  in  March  2004  to 
establish, by the end of 2004, Council’s priorities for up-dating and simplifying Community 
legislation  which  the  Commission  will  take  into  account  -  together  with  input  from  other 
institutions and stakeholders - in future up-dates of its rolling, multi-annual programme. The 
Inter-institutional  Agreement  on  Better  Lawmaking,  which  entered  into  force  in  December 
2003, should further facilitate the up-dating and simplification of the Community acquis. 

1 
2 
3 
4 

COM(2003) 71. 
COM(2002) 278. 
SEC(2004) 774. 
The Commission intends to report more fully on progress by the end of 2004. 

EN 

2 

   EN 

 
                                                 
Overall,  implementation  of  the  Commission’s  ambitious  framework  for  up-dating  and 
simplifying Community legislation is progressing in a satisfactory way. The results of Phase 
II confirm that the momentum is maintained although there are also delays in the realisation 
of  some  key  actions.  During  Phases  I  and  II,  the  Commission's  overwhelming  priority  has 
been  to  ensure  successful  enlargement,  the  preparations  for  which  have  slowed  down 
activities in other areas, including some of the activities aimed at up-dating and simplifying 
the Community acquis. 

1. 

Simplification of the substance of secondary Community legislation 

With the February 2003 initiative, the Commission launched a process of screening of policy 
sectors  in  order  to  identify  simplification  potential.  Since  February  2003,  21  policy  sectors 
have  now  been  screened  (13  sectors  were  screened  during  Phase  II).  Mainstreaming  of 
screening  throughout  all  policy  areas  will  be  continued  to  ensure  that  potential  for 
simplification is fully exploited.  

The rolling programme for specific simplification initiatives is being implemented broadly 
according  to  plan.  Under  the  Framework  for  Action,  the  Commission  is  preparing 
simplification of a vast range of Community legislation (more than 60 legal acts). By the end 
of  March  2004,  the  Commission  has  adopted  30  initiatives  with  simplification  implications 
(18 initiatives were adopted during Phase I and 12 during Phase II) - and generally within the 
planned  timelines.  Moreover,  additional  simplification  proposals  continue  to  be  identified. 
Thus, 8 new initiatives were added to the rolling programme for Phase II (announced in the 1st 
progress report5) and 12 further new candidates for simplification are now announced in the 
2nd  progress  report  for  Phase  III.  In  addition,  the  Commission  adopted  5  simplification 
initiatives during Phases I and II even if these were not pre-announced as such.  

The real benefits of simplification materialise only after adoption by the legislator and entry 
into  force  of  simplified  legislation.  By  the  end  of  Phase  II,  20  legislative  simplification 
proposals  were  pending  before  the  legislator  (8  of  these  were  proposed  before  February 
2003).  The  Commission  therefore  invites  the  Parliament  and  Council  to  proceed  to  early 
adoption  of  simplification  proposals  whilst  giving  appropriate  priority  to  the  simplification 
objective  vis-à-vis  other  objectives,  in  accordance  with  the  Inter-Institutional  Agreement  on 
Better Lawmaking. 

The second progress report offers detailed identification of the type of simplification pursued 
in terms of (1) simplification of legislation, (2) simplification of administrative procedures for 
public  authorities  (EU  or  national)  and  (3)  simplification  of  the  administrative  burdens  for 
private  parties  (mainly  business).  In  light  of  the  priorities  endorsed  by  the  March  2004 
European  Council,  it  is  noteworthy  that  by  March  2004,  the  Commission  has  adopted  25 
initiatives  which  would  contribute  to  reduce  the  administrative  burdens  for  private  parties 
(including 8 legislative proposals already presented before February 2003). 

It  should  also  be  recalled  that  on-going  effort  is  being  made  to  ensure  improved  drafting 
quality and clarity of EU legislation and that detailed guidelines for this were set out under the 
1998 Inter-institutional Agreement on quality of drafting of Community legislation. 

5 

COM(2003) 623. 

EN 

3 

   EN 

 
                                                 
2. 

Reducing the volume of the Community acquis 

In  2001,  the  Commission  set  itself  the  target  of  reducing  the  volume  of  the  acquis  by  25% 
(corresponding to about 22.500 pages of the Official Journal) by the end of its mandate6. At 
the  same  time,  it  launched  a  vast  programme  for  codification  of  existing  legislation  which, 
when completed by the end of 2005, would reduce the acquis by an estimated 30.000 - 35.000 
pages7.  Even  though  it  was  set  to  be  concluded  one  year  later  than  the  end  of  the  mandate 
period, the Commission had envisaged that the progressive achievement of codification would 
deliver  the  bulk  of  the  planned  volume  reductions.  Other  actions  such  as  withdrawal  of 
obsolete  legislation  (for  which  no  quantitative  estimates  are  available)  and  to  some  extent 
legislative simplification could provide a complement.  

In  implementing  the  codification  programme,  however,  the  Commission  has  encountered 
unforeseen  problems  which  were  for  a  large  part  beyond  its  control.  In  particular,  the 
translation of the acquis into the new languages (which takes place in the respective Member 
States) has not been achieved by the date of accession and texts needed for codification in the 
new languages are only becoming available progressively during 2004. 

At this point in time, therefore, the Commission estimates that the 25% reduction objective is 
unlikely to be reached by end-2004. The objective is however likely to be realised within a 
reasonable  period  thereafter  given  the  progress  made  at  the  technical  level  for  each  of  the 
operations concerned. 

•  Codification  

Apart  from  the  above  mentioned  translation  problems,  the  codification  programme  is 
progressing satisfactorily at a technical level and the preparation of codification has increased 
dramatically during Phase II - as regards acts of the Commission that activity has doubled in 
comparison with Phase I, both in terms of the number of acts being processed and in terms of 
the number of OJ pages those acts represent. In the case of acts of the EP and Council activity 
has trebled, again in terms both of the number of acts and the number of OJ pages. In total, 
the volume of text currently being processed represents over 10.000 pages. In addition to the 
Commission's programme for the codification of the acquis, day-to-day codification is also a 
tool used through the legislative technique known as recasting. 

In terms of the finished product i.e. acts and proposals for acts adopted by the Commission, 
progress  during  Phase  II  has  been  limited  by  the  nine-month  moratorium  (August  2003  – 
April  2004)  in  the  adoption  and  publication  of  codified  acts  applied  during  the  lead-up  to 
accession. The purpose of the moratorium was to ensure that the codification project did not 
impose additional burdens on Office for Official Publications and on the Accession Countries 
during the final crucial phase of preparations for accession. 

Moreover, as mentioned above, the end of the moratorium will not mean immediate progress 
in adopting those acts during Phase III due to the fact that, as of accession, all codified acts 
must, in principle, be adopted in 20 languages. This means that the adoption of those codified 
texts ready for adoption in 11 languages at the end of the moratorium will be delayed until the 
new language versions are available and that the preparation of further codified texts must be 

6 
7 

COM(2001) 726. 
COM(2001) 645. 

EN 

4 

   EN 

 
                                                 
extended  to  the  additional  9  new  languages.  During  the  remainder  of  2004,  therefore,  no 
significant number of codified acts will be formally adopted and published in the OJ. It will 
be necessary to await 2005 and the gradual normalisation of the translation situation to see the 
main results of the codification exercise.  

If  the  codification  programme  is  not  to  suffer  further  delays,  it  is  vital  that  the  efforts  to 
translate the acquis in the new languages be continued, if not redoubled. The current forecast 
is that the final texts will be ready for publication only at the end of 2004. 

In  the  meantime,  the  Commission  will  also  make  available  on  a  dedicated  website  the 
mastercopies of draft codified texts in the relevant working language to provide insight into 
the progress of work and public access to its provisional results.  

•  Removing obsolete legislation  

The first progress report already exposed the main difficulties which slow down the process 
of  withdrawing  obsolete  legislation  from  the  acquis,  in  particular  the  need  for  complex 
case-by-case analysis of the legal bases to establish the appropriate procedure. During Phase 
II, very few acts were therefore formally repealed or declared obsolete. In addition, only a few 
Commission departments have been contributing actively to this action.  

However,  in  early  2004,  detailed  guidelines  were  established  to  facilitate  the  work  of 
Commission departments and the total number of candidate acts under examination for repeal, 
declaration  of  obsolescence  or  administrative  correction  in  the  inter-institutional  reference 
database (CELEX) has increased significantly from the 582 candidates announced in February 
2003 to about 880. The examination of 361 of these acts is now close to conclusion.  

Great efforts have been devoted during the past year to screen the acquis for the purpose of 
enlargement.  This  exercise  has  demonstrated  that  some  40%  of  the  current  volume  of  the 
acquis was not directly relevant for publication in the new languages, for example because it 
took the form of decisions addressed to individual Member States or because it had become 
obsolete.  While  this  should  not  be  taken  as  a  indication  of  the  quantitative  scope  for 
eliminating  obsolete  legislation,  this  exercise  linked  with  enlargement  has  considerably 
improved the  mapping of the acquis and should now facilitate  the drive to  remove obsolete 
legislation in a more formal manner. 

•  Consolidation 

In June 2003, the Office for Official Publications completed the comprehensive programme to 
consolidate the entire Community acquis (in 11 languages) and the result is freely available to 
the  public  via  EUR-Lex.  Consolidation  of  secondary  legislation,  like  codification,  brings 
together  a  basic  legal  act  and  all  its  amending  acts  in  a  single  text.  Although  the  resulting 
consolidated texts are not subject to formal decision-making procedures and therefore do not 
have legal status, they greatly facilitate access to legislation and reduce the volume of texts.  

The Office continues to consolidate EU legislation on an on-going basis and, in particular, to 
prepare  consolidated  texts  in  the  format  required  for  subsequent  formal  codification. 
Consolidation  of  secondary  legislation  in  the  new  languages  will  begin  in  September  2004, 
once the necessary translations are available, and will proceed according to priorities aimed at 
the earliest possible conclusion of the codification programme. 

EN 

5 

   EN