European Parliament resolution on a strategy for the simplification of the regulatory environment (2006/2006(INI))
Date: 2006-05-16
Institutions: Committee on Legal Affairs, European Parliament
Subjects: application of EU law, consolidation of EU law, drafting of EU law, simplification of legislation

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Tuesday, 16 May 2006

P6_TA(2006)0205

Strategy for simplification of the regulatory environment

European Parliament resolution on a strategy for the simplification of the regulatory environment
(2006/2006(INI))

The European Parliament,

— having regard to its resolution of 26 October 2000 on the Commission reports to the European Council

entitled ‘Better lawmaking 1998 — A shared responsibility’ and ‘Better lawmaking 1999’ (1),

— having regard to its resolution of 29 November 2001 on the Commission White Paper on European

governance (2),

— having regard to its resolution of 8 April 2003 on the Commission reports to the European Council

entitled ‘Better lawmaking 2000’ and ‘Better lawmaking 2001’ (3),

— having regard to its resolution of 26 February 2004 on the Commission report entitled ‘Better

Lawmaking 2002’ (4),

— having regard to its resolution of 9 March 2004 on the Commission communication on simplifying and

improving the Community's regulatory activity (5),

— having regard to its resolution of 20 April 2004 on assessment of the impact of Community legislation

and the consultation procedures (6),

— having regard to Rule 45 of its Rules of Procedure,

— having regard to the report of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the opinions of the Committee on
Constitutional Affairs, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, the Committee on the Envir-
onment, Public Health and Food Safety and the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protec-
tion (A6-0080/2006),

A. whereas simplifying the legislative environment and ensuring the clarity, efficacy and quality of both
existing and future legislation are essential prerequisites for attaining the objective of ‘better lawmaking’,
which constitutes a priority for the Union in the context of boosting growth and employment,

B. having regard to the obligations and aims laid down in the Interinstitutional Agreement on better law-
making of 16 December 2003 (7), especially those intended to simplify, and reduce the volume of, Com-
munity legislation and those relating to the impact of Community legislation in the Member States,

C. whereas the Commission,

in its communication of 25 October 2005 entitled ‘Implementing the
Community Lisbon programme: a strategy for
the regulatory environment’
(COM(2005)0535), rightly presents simplification not as a distinct legislative technique involving codifi-
cation, recasting or straightforward repeal but as an overall approach including those tools and aimed at
making Community and national legislation easier to apply and hence less costly,

the simplification of

D. whereas this approach, is for the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament, a tool for use

in achieving the aims of the Lisbon strategy,

(1) <OJ C 197, 12.7.2001, p. 433.
(2) OJ C 153 E, 27.6.2002, p. 314.
(3) OJ C 64 E, 12.3.2004, p. 135.
(4) OJ C 98 E, 23.4.2004, p. 155.
(5) OJ C 102 E, 28.4.2004, p. 512.
(6) OJ C 104 E, 30.4.2004, p. 146.
(7) OJ C 321, 31.12.2003, p. 1.

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E. whereas such an approach requires a close partnership in this area, first between the European institu-

tions and then between the latter and the national authorities,

Tuesday, 16 May 2006

F. having regard to the unstinting efforts by the Commission, the Council and Parliament in recent years to

bring about, define and improve the application of legislative simplification tools,

G. whereas the simplification initiatives undertaken since the second simplification programme was
launched in February 2003 following the Communication from the Commission to the Council entitled
‘Updating and simplifying the Community acquis’ (COM(2003)0071, 11 February 2003) have varied
widely in nature and scope, ranging from the review of specific directives to overhauling the legislation
of an entire sector, thus hampering a standardised procedural approach,

H. having regard to the experience acquired in the implementation of the Interinstitutional Agreements of
20 December 1994 (1) on codification and of 28 November 2001 (2) on recasting, and considering
those instruments to be essential in order to simplify the acquis communautaire,

I. whereas since the Interinstitutional Agreement on recasting entered into force, only 12 recasting propo-
sals have been submitted, of which 2 led ultimately to publication of the resulting acts, 2 have been with-
drawn, and 8 are still pending; and whereas, compared to somewhere in the region of 2 400 families of
legislative acts to which the procedure might be applicable, only 49 codification proposals have to date
been submitted to Parliament,

J. whereas the above-mentioned Commission Communication of 2005 contains,

in its ‘Simplification
Rolling Programme’ (Annex II), thirty proposals which cannot easily be classified, dealing generically
with cases for ‘review’, ‘revision’, ‘modernisation’, ‘simplification’ and the like,

1.
Strongly supports the process of simplification of the Union's regulatory environment, as well as the
objective of ensuring that the regulatory environment is appropriate, simple and effective; stresses, however,
that such a process must be based on a number of preconditions:

a)

full involvement of the European Parliament both in the interinstitutional debate on simplification and,
as co-legislator, in the adoption of the legislation subject to the ‘simplification process’;

b) wide and transparent consultation of all relevant stakeholders, thus including not only Member States

and business but also non-governmental organisations;

c) strengthening of the general transparency of the regulatory process, in particular by opening Council

discussions to the public when the Council is acting in its legislative capacity;

2.
Encourages the Commission to adopt, under the aegis of the Interinstitutional Agreement on better
law-making, specifically targeted and well thought-out legislation the effects of which can be foreseen, and
which will help to establish favourable conditions for boosting growth and employment by reducing unne-
cessary administrative costs and procedures, eliminating obstacles to adaptability and innovation and gener-
ally ensuring legal certainty;

3. Welcomes the above-mentioned Commission communication of 2005, the commitment to submitting
a programme to simplify legislative acts, and the methods and targets laid down for translating that
programme into reality;

4. Welcomes the fact that the Commission intends to include major simplification initiatives in its annual
legislative programmes and the announcement that the Commission will submit additional communications
to cover the different sectors of the Community economy; stresses the importance of close collaboration
between the Member States and the Commission for the purpose of identifying the legislation which should
be simplified;

(1) OJ C 102, 4.4.1996, p. 2.
(2) OJ C 77, 28.3.2002, p. 1.

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5. Welcomes the intention to reduce the unnecessary burden on SMEs and to reinforce the use of informa-
tion technology; considers that one of the objectives of simplifying the Union's regulatory environment
should be to make legislation simpler and more effective, and thus more ‘user-oriented’;

6. Considers that the simplification process should in no circumstances entail lowering the standards set
by current legislation; warns, for example, against an excessively narrow and exclusively financial and admin-
istrative analysis of the costs and benefits of the legislation concerned; is convinced that any assessment
with a view to simplification must take account equally of economic, social, environmental and health
aspects, and should not restrict itself to short-term considerations;

7.
Invites the Commission to give priority to the simplification of regulations; considers that directives
should be simplified only in exceptional and duly justified cases, when they are not dealing with very sensi-
tive matters or are not the result of difficult compromises, as in the case of EC company law;

8. Notes that the success rate of the simplification initiatives undertaken since 2003 is not disappointing
and that the average length of procedures is not excessive given the complexity of the subject-matter;
observes, nevertheless, that the number of simplification initiatives launched since that date has been very
limited and that the targets originally set for reducing the volume of the Community acquis are far from
being achieved;

9.
Takes the view that the repeal of irrelevant and obsolete acts is a priority requirement with which the
Commission must comply without delay; considers, however, that when Community legislation is repealed
on those grounds, a Community act must be put in place at the same time to prevent Member States from
regulating matters that have been deregulated at Community level;

10.
Points out that, while there may be over-regulation in some areas, this state of affairs is due in large
measure to the lawmaking activity of the Member States and that, therefore, if Community legislation is to
be repealed, this must be followed by repeal of the corresponding national provisions;

11.
Proposes that the Commission constantly monitor such national legislation as might remain in force
after the Community legislation that gave rise to it has been repealed; considers that the Commission should
add appropriate review clauses to its proposals;

12. Considers codification and recasting to be the primary means of simplifying the acquis communau-
taire and urges that they be used more widely; believes that recasting has been used only to a limited extent
and that this is due to both lack of interest on the part of the Commission and a failure to gear the Euro-
pean Parliament's Rules of Procedure closely enough to the Interinstitutional Agreement on recasting;

13.
Supports the codification of the acquis communitaire but is sceptical about its total recasting, as this
may well lead to diverging interpretations among the EU institutions; warns that simplification should not
lead to a re-writing of the acquis outside democratic control;

14. Applauds the results achieved so far through codification of Community legislation and hopes that
the Commission units concerned will draw up new, and more ambitious, codification proposals extending
also to sectors other than those covered to date,
intellectual property, and
consumer protection;

in particular company law,

15. Considers that if the institutions genuinely wish to simplify legislation and employ recasting to that
end, the Interinstitutional Agreement on recasting should be applied more rigorously;

16. Understands that, if the intention is to make recasting effective, the European Parliament and the
Council will, as a matter of principle, have to refrain from amending the codified parts of acts; believes that,
if the institutions genuinely wish to simplify legislation and employ recasting to that end, the codified parts
of an act should, as a rule, be subject to the provisions laid down in the Interinstitutional Agreement on
codification; recognises, however, that there should be a special procedure to enable the codified part to be
amended whenever this is essential in order to make it consistent with, or to link it to, the part that can be
altered;

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17. Considers that the institutions might usefully determine whether a third type of operation might be
provided for, alongside codification and recasting, so as to afford the most appropriate means of simplifying
Community legal acts; considers, however, that to date, in those cases in which the Commission has drawn
up generic simplification proposals which cannot be classified as involving repeal, codification or recasting,
the European Parliament cannot embark on any procedure other than the customary one and that therefore,
in such cases, point 36 of the Interinstitutional Agreement on better law-making cannot be applied;

Tuesday, 16 May 2006

18. Considers that the Interinstitutional Agreement on recasting should spell out the procedure to follow
in cases where, during a legislative procedure, it proves necessary to alter the codified parts of the act;

19. Calls on the Commission, taking into account the guidelines set out above, to submit a proposal
without delay with a view to recasting the interinstitutional agreements governing the quality of Union legis-
lation;

Is ready to make a larger contribution to the work that needs to be done jointly by the three institu-

20.
tions to relaunch the simplification process;

21. Undertakes for its part to give thought to the improvement of its procedures and its internal legislative
techniques in order to speed up the simplification dossiers, while complying with the procedures laid down
in primary law, in this particular case the EC Treaty;

22.
Instructs the Committee on Constitutional Affairs to determine what amendments might be made to
the Rules of Procedure to enable the agreement on recasting to be effectively implemented, not least with a
view to making greater use of the simplified procedures laid down in the Rules of Procedure;

23.
Emphasises the fact that traditional legislative instruments must continue to be used as a general rule
to attain the objectives laid down in the Treaties; takes the view that the use of alternative regulatory
methods such as co-regulation and self-regulation could usefully supplement legislative measures where
these methods make improvements of equivalent or broader scope than legislation can provide; stresses that
any use of alternative regulatory methods must comply with the interinstitutional agreement on ‘better law-
making’; points out that the Commission has to lay down the conditions and limits which the parties must
observe when employing such regulatory methods, and that these should in any event be used under
Commission supervision and without prejudice to Parliament's right to object to their use;

24. Asks the Commission to present a report assessing whether the current practice of standardisation as
a form of co-regulation meets the requirements of the Inter-Institutional agreement on better law-making
and Article 6 of the EC Treaty;

25.
Takes the view that standardisation could lead to less transparency and accountability, since the
elected representatives would not be involved in decision making, and participation of non-governmental
organisations and other interested parties would not be guaranteed in the same way; takes the view, there-
fore, that standardisation should be strictly limited to harmonising measures of a purely technical nature;

26.
Is surprised that the issue of reforming the current system of delegating rule-making (‘comitology’)
receives only a brief mention in passing — towards the end of point 3.d — in the above-mentioned
Commission communication of 2005, even though such a reform could make a major contribution to
simplifying secondary Community law by allowing the Commission to adopt implementing provisions using
faster procedures;

27.
Is of the opinion that the legislature could also contribute to simplification through agreement on less
detailed legal acts and the use of a wider range of implementing measures by the Commission, provided that
effective control by the legislature as to the substance of those implementing measures is guaranteed;

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28. Reaffirms in this context that any recourse to the ‘comitology’ procedure would necessitate a complete
revision of Council Decision 1999/468/EC of 28 June 1999 laying down the procedures for the exercise of
implementing powers conferred on the Commission (1), in order to:

a) guarantee greater openness,

b) ensure that any conferral of implementing powers on the Commission was limited to non-essential or
implementing measures and was conditional upon a clear definition of the objective, content, scope and
duration of the delegation of powers, including, where appropriate, ‘sunset clauses’,

c) guarantee the introduction of formal equality between the powers of the European Parliament and those

of the Council in considering these measures, through the introduction of call-back procedures;

29.
Takes note of the list of actions contained in the Commission simplification rolling programme and
will actively cooperate in the achievement of the objective of simplifying pieces of legislation, if appropriate,
in the context of the forthcoming legislative process;

30.
Expects that the various recasting and review proposals emanating from the Commission will contri-
bute to improving the Union's level of economic and social development in the context of the sustainable
development policy, as well as the level of citizens' health protection and the quality of their environment,
in conformity with the objectives laid down in Article 2 of the EC Treaty;

Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission and the governments

31.
and parliaments of the Member States.

(1) OJ L 184, 17.7.1999, p. 23.

P6_TA(2006)0206

Outcome of the screening of legislative proposals pending before the Legislator

European Parliament resolution on the outcome of the screening of legislative proposals pending
before the Legislator (2005/2214(INI))

The European Parliament,

— having regard to the Commission communication of 27 September 2005 to the Council and the Euro-
pean Parliament on the outcome of the screening of legislative proposals pending before the Legislator
(COM(2005)0462),

— having regard to the letter from its President to the President of the Commission dated 23 January

2006 (1),

— having regard to the letter from the President of the Commission to the President of the Parliament

dated 8 March 2006,

— having regard to Rule 45 of its Rules of Procedure,

— having regard to the report of

the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and the opinion of

the

Committee on Legal Affairs (A6-0143/2006), whereas

A.

in its above-mentioned communication, the Commission announced its intention to withdraw 68
proposals that it considers inconsistent with the objectives of the Lisbon Strategy and the principles of
better regulation, while others will be subject to a reviewed economic impact assessment and, if appro-
priate, modified,

(1) Ref. Pres-A-Courrier D(2006)300689).