Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee – Regulatory simplification – The use of digital tools in better law-making (Exploratory opinion requested by the Danish Presidency)
Date: 2025-07-16
Institutions: European Economic and Social Committee
Subjects: application of EU law, approximation of laws, artificial intelligence, digital transformation, drafting of EU law, electronic government, information technology applications, innovation, institutional cooperation, simplification of legislation




C_202505146EN.000101.fmx.xml












Official Journal of the European Union


EN
C series













C/2025/5146


28.10.2025






Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee
Regulatory simplification – The use of digital tools in better law-making
(Exploratory opinion requested by the Danish Presidency)
(C/2025/5146)


Rapporteur: 
Alena MASTANTUONO

Co-rapporteur: 
Tymoteusz ZYCH






Advisors


Zdeněk ZAJÍČEK (to the rapporteur)




 


Antoni RYTEL (to the co-rapporteur)




Referral


7.2.2025, Danish Presidency of the Council




Legal basis


Article 304 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union




Section responsible


Single Market, Production and Consumption




Adopted in section


26.6.2025




Adopted at plenary session


16.7.2025




Plenary session No


598




Outcome of vote
(for/against/abstentions)


173/2/9




1.   Conclusions and recommendations









1.1.


The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) highlights the need for regulatory simplification and the power of digital tools such as AI and e-government platforms to enhance transparency, efficiency, and accountability in EU law-making, based on a human-centric model and in line with the democratic principles and the goals of the Better Regulation agenda.












1.2.


With the constant changes to regulation and the growing number of rules at EU, national, regional and local levels, it is unrealistic to expect regulators, legislators and the public to be aware of all obligations. The EESC therefore recommends making these rules more accessible by attaching a clear summary of obligations to each new legal act and also carrying out this exercise for already adopted legislation. These summaries should be human-translated but formatted to generate metadata for further digital use. AI can then help identify overlaps, inconsistencies, or gaps by linking related provisions and highlighting interconnections between legislation from different sources. It should also serve as a good basis for updating existing regulation.












1.3.


The EU should establish a unified, interoperable digital platform for law-making. Developed through an updated EU interinstitutional agreement, this platform would enable the EU institutions to collaboratively draft, amend, and track legislation. By centralising texts and metadata, it could perform real-time consistency checks, flag legal interdependencies, and suggest harmonised language – enhancing both efficiency and transparency. In section 4 below, the EESC proposes a model for the EU institutions how to integrate digital tools and obligation summaries into the legislative process. The EESC invites the EU institutions to nominate a regtech chief responsible for introducing digital tools and AI in EU regulatory processes.












1.4.


The EESC also encourages the EU institutions to use AI to analyse data such as economic trends and stakeholder input, which would make it possible to proactively identify areas requiring regulation, and to set evidence-based legislative priorities. At the same time, it emphasises that AI cannot replace traditional dialogue with stakeholders or negotiations with the social partners and must be thoroughly tested in order to avoid discrimination, biases and other potential inaccuracies.












1.5.


Additionally, AI should play a role when it comes to the implementation of rules, in terms of ensuring compliance and comparing the Member States’ approaches to implementing EU law, as well as in identifying both best practices and inconsistencies. These insights can help streamline enforcement, reduce market fragmentation, and support a more effective and harmonised application of EU rules across the Member States.












1.6.


The EESC believes that such better law-making processes would also significantly improve the legislative process at national level, with enhanced consistency and transparency as well as positive results in terms of a significant reduction in single market barriers and administrative burden. Most importantly, trust in public institutions and the degree of compliance would increase, contributing to increased well-being for European citizens.




2.   Background information









2.1.


The ‘LegalTech’ landscape has changed considerably over the last two decades, with a technology evolution taking place at the same time. Governments have started experiencing its added value at different speeds. The landscape is based on several elements: the understanding of law-making and theory of law, use of IT tools and their smart evolution, and the recognition of the need to consider broader ethical and legal implications.












2.2.


Enhancing the legislative process with digital tools can be achieved by automating regulatory templates, promoting e-government platforms, using AI and data analytics in policy impact assessment, as well as ensuring transparency and compliance. For regulatory drafting, AI-powered tools can assist lawmakers in drafting and analysing legislation, ensuring consistency and reducing errors. Natural Language Processing (NLP) can help simplify legal jargon, making laws more comprehensible to businesses and citizens. Centralised digital portals allow stakeholders to access, track and comment on legislative proposals in real time. Platforms like Regulations.gov (U.S.) and Better Regulation (EU) enable public participation, improving accountability.












2.3.


Predictive analytics can assess the potential impact of new laws on businesses and economic growth. Machine learning can identify redundant or conflicting regulations, ensuring a streamlined legal framework. Thanks in part to regulatory obligations, regulators have a huge amount of data at their disposal. If stored and analysed properly, it has enormous potential to be a great source for impact assessments.












2.4.


Most importantly, digital tools can help citizens with compliance. Smart tools such as calculators, e-calendars of legal obligations and e-forms for taxation can automate compliance processes, reducing paperwork and bureaucracy. While making administrative procedures easier for citizens, this also increases the compliance rate. Making rules comprehensible and easy to apply enhances trust in public administration.












2.5.


Several countries have started using digital tools for law-making. The use of templates that monitor the correct structure of legal texts varies across different countries; they can take the form of specialised tools or even plug-ins for Word. Working with full texts and the automatic generation of amendments are also supported by similar tools, such as AT4AM, used in the European Parliament. The transfer of structured data between institutions is another example. Some countries have specific structures in XML (based, for example, on the Akoma Ntoso standard), which serves as the standard for data transfer between institutions. Germany and Slovenia, for instance, aim to cover the entire process on the basis of rules, whereas Czechia relies on a single common information system. The Czech initiative eLegislativa is currently one of the most advanced. It is a single, unique tool covering the entire process of creating legislation – from the initial idea, through the development of related documents such as the regulatory impact assessment, and an overview of public obligations, to publication in the Collection of Laws, including the central management of templates and correlation tables for implementing European law (1). A similar system – Rządowy Proces Legislacyjny (RPL) and its accompanying web portal, legislacja.rcl.gov.pl – is in operation in Poland, allowing for multistakeholder deliberation and tracking of the legislative process across entities.












2.6.


The European Union has established a framework for common legislative metadata based on the Council conclusions calling for the European Legislation Identifier (ELI) (2012/C325/02) to be introduced. The implementation of this framework varies greatly by country, leading to major differences in terms of how far each country’s legislative process has been digitalised.




3.   General comments









3.1.


The EESC recognises the transformative potential of digital tools in enhancing the legislative process. By using automation, artificial intelligence (AI), and e-government platforms, the EU and its Member States can achieve greater transparency, efficiency and accountability in law-making. The integration of digital solutions aligns with the principles of EU’s Better Regulation agenda and serves as a foundation for a more accessible and streamlined legal framework.












3.2.


Streamlining regulation and integrating digital tools and/or AI into law-making can significantly enhance the legislative process by improving efficiency, transparency and accessibility. Several studies have proven that technology-driven solutions can reduce administrative burdens and create a more business-friendly environment (2).












3.3.


The EESC stresses that the precondition for successfully using digital technologies in drafting laws is compliance with the principles of legitimacy and enforceability, in line with Member States’ constitutional law and the EU Treaties, as well as the responsibility of law-makers, legal theory (hermeneutics), and democratic systems (separation of powers). This approach should also be based on multiple disciplines, including the philosophy of law, legal informatics and computational linguistics, fostering a plurality of perspectives to model a new vision.












3.4.


The use of digital technologies in drafting also requires a legal basis to introduce rules that are clear to all actors involved in the drafting process. The EESC recommends that the use of digital tools be preceded by an analysis of the processes, interconnections between different actors and legal acts, and the knowledge and capacities of users, who need to be properly trained to understand the new logic and methods of drafting laws. Additionally, there should be an option for users to report problems and provide feedback, which can improve the use of digital technologies.












3.5.


The use of digital tools can be particularly useful for AI-driven legal frameworks, as they can unify regulations across different government departments and agencies, reducing duplication and confusion. As the number of regulations increases, ensuring consistency of rules and definitions becomes difficult for humans alone, and digital tools contribute to such simplification.












3.6.


Enhanced simplification and transparency of the drafting process also mean that civil society can be better consulted and can track how its comments have been taken into account by regulators and legislators. A better understanding and increased transparency in the consultation process are key for the EESC. At the same time, it stresses that digital literacy is a prerequisite in this regard and that online consultations or comment-collection tools can never replace established procedures for informing, consulting, engaging with, and negotiating with the social partners and other stakeholders, particularly vulnerable groups.












3.7.


The EESC stresses the importance of focusing on the implementation phase of legislation. The effectiveness of laws is measured by their clarity, enforceability, and the ease with which citizens and businesses can comply. It recommends to the Member States as well the EU institutions to enhance interoperability between different public digital tools and ensure that legislative rules are easily accessible and comprehensible. In this regard, it is worth mentioning initiatives in individual Member States such as the interoperability of digital reporting in the EU developed by the Finnish tax authority, Estonia’s standardised data-driven reporting, the Danish Annual Account Act, which supports automated reporting, and the Czech legal electronic system (3).












3.8.


The European Commission has been using digital tools, including AI. Technological progress also means improving the system and consolidating the interoperability of the different tools it uses. However, it still lacks a clear overview of rules and how they interact with one another. As highlighted in the Draghi report: ‘The regulatory burden on European companies is high and continues to grow, but the EU lacks a common methodology to assess it. The Commission has been working for years to reduce the “stock” and “flow” of regulation under the Better Regulation agenda and its strategy from February 2025 promises improvements (4). The EESC deems that having a real-time overview of the stock and flow of regulation is crucial for better law-making.












3.9.


In this regard, the EESC calls on the EU institutions to set up a centralised database summarising legal obligations arising from legal acts adopted. This database would enhance regulatory transparency and ensure that all stakeholders – regulators, co-legislators, Member States, and civil society – clearly understand new rules. If regulators translate rules into obligations themselves – a human-based approach – this can provide a solid base which can then be used as reference by digital tools, including AI. Drawing on best practice, each piece of legislation could be documented in three forms: its aim (explanatory memorandum of legal acts with recitals), the text of the legislation in chapters, articles and subarticles, and – as a new element – a set of “atomised” legal norms which represent particular obligations and/or duties and/or rights, formatted as structured data (XML). Structuring legislative acts in this way could be further developed using dedicated information systems (similar to eLegislativa and/or the Legal Electronic System).












3.10.


As regulatory simplification and digital innovation in law-making can significantly improve efficiency, transparency and accessibility, the EESC emphasises the need for a human-centred approach, where digital tools enhance – not replace – democratic processes. By making use of digital advancements while addressing the potential risks, the EU can create a more streamlined, business-friendly, and citizen-oriented legislative system, while at the same time ensuring legal clarity.












3.11.


The upcoming discussions on the new EU interinstitutional agreement present an opportunity to institutionalise digital legislative tools. The EESC proposes a model where EU institutions adopt digital drafting platforms, impact assessment tools, and compliance facilitation mechanisms to make EU regulations more consistent and accessible.












3.12.


The EU institutions should make use of duly tested AI and similar technologies to flag up areas requiring legislative action, analyse stakeholder sentiment and identify areas of confusion, and to pinpoint areas where legal norms stemming from different sources interconnect.












3.13.


A similar approach should be used extensively while conducting a regular ex-post analysis of existing regulations, especially one that analyses stakeholder sentiment (an area where other tools for achieving the same goal have proven ineffective) and that compares the implementation models of the Member States. The ex-post analysis should tie in with the aforementioned diagnostic process and be taken into consideration while constructing the EU legislative agenda.




4.   Recommended model for EU institutions









4.1.


To ensure efficiency and consistency, a single unique tool is needed for EU law-making, covering the entire legislative system – from drafting impact assessments (ex ante, dynamic and ex post) and legal acts, through the co-legislator procedure if applied, to implementation in Member States and compliance by those for whom the law is intended. The process would have to be framed by a specific piece of legislation and embedded in the interinstitutional agreement.












4.2.


The prerequisite is to digitalise all laws and transfer them to the database in individual segments – provisions and their enrichment with the necessary metadata, especially data on time effectiveness and links to other laws. From the user’s point of view, the legislation could be built from two basic components – the Editor and the Process Portal. The Editor Portal contains templates for all possible types of legal acts and ensures compliance with formal rules when creating legislative proposals. The Process Portal then serves to implement the entire legislative process, which is mandatory for a given type of legal act, including, for example, internal approval processes of individual institutions or the creation of documents for meetings of parliamentary committees.












4.3.


Since users would work on one database, the system will make it possible to check whether the proposed piece of legislation is based not only on valid law, but also whether or not it is influenced by any pending legislation that has not yet gone through the entire legislative process. The users would always know whether they are working on a valid, future or potentially amended text. They would be also informed if the changes they proposed are made redundant by other legislative activity. The system could reduce the conflicts that currently arise when incorporating amendments into the final text. Accompanying tools such as translation software and dictionaries, and applications enabling the user to work offline, would be compatible with the system. All outputs should be available to the public on a public portal, where it is possible to monitor the status of work on the legislative proposal.












4.4.


The EESC emphasises that integrating AI and digital tools into the EU legislative process could begin in the early, pre-legislative stages. Digital tools would be used even before the legislative initiative gets under way in order to analyse collected data and examine the need for such an initiative on the basis of impact assessments using feedback from society. Templates to draft the legislation should be used with codes that would draw attention to similar rules and obligations and to templates for internal consultations. Any draft should be accompanied by a summary of obligations that arise from the text before being put to a public consultation together with an impact assessment.












4.5.


A summary of obligations together with impact assessments would be very helpful for the European Commission to make policy decisions but also for the Regulatory Scrutiny Board to analyse the proposal.












4.6.


The system should track the comments of all actors involved in the process. The same applies to public and other sorts of consultations. The system should also ensure a fairer balance between the participants in public consultations on draft legislation. The same weight should not be given to the comments of an organisation with a large number of members, as is given to the comments of one individual. A link between the database and the transparency register where these data are stored would be necessary. This would also mean inverting today’s approach, whereby there are rules for a small number of entities with exemptions for the majority, and instead moving to the “think-small-first principle”, adopting different conditions for large entities and not the other way around.












4.7.


The system should make it possible to show the evolution of the work by the co-legislator bodies – the European Parliament and the Council. This includes all information on amendments and related updated impact assessments, if any, together with updates to the summary of obligations. This would also require more transparent and consistent work in trilogues. Ensuring consistency and transparency would not mean that the democratic process is weakened. On the contrary, the opposite is true.












4.8.


Furthermore, the EESC highlights the need for EU legal services to carry out exploratory and regular ex post assessments, ensuring legal coherence and necessity. AI-driven mapping of legal interdependencies is also seen as crucial, enabling the co-legislators to anticipate overlaps, contradictions, and legal gaps, thus ensuring that new legislation complements the existing legal framework and supports better regulation. Publishing the final adopted text in the EU’s Official Journal, together with an updated impact assessment and list of obligations, would make it easier to implement and enforce. For the transposition, the Member states would have to stick to the list of obligations agreed, which would prevent the single market from becoming fragmented and make it easier for enforcement authorities to interpret the law.












4.9.


Having one database would also ensure that the Commission, as the guardian of the Treaties, has real-time feedback on the implementation and enforcement. The database should have an obligatory open window for comments from civil society to assess the implementation, but also to warn about Member States’ initiatives that could potentially lead to further fragmentation of the single market.












4.10.


Last but not least, the implementation of regulatory provisions should be accompanied by digital tools. These could be automatic calculators, e-calendars or reporting systems. This would provide the Commission with valuable data and might reduce the number of future reporting requests in line with the ‘once-only principle’ and most importantly would enhance compliance. The EESC advocates creating data spaces at EU level that are interconnected with those from Member States and introducing the right for citizens to digital service, which would ensure that public administration requests the information from citizens only once and source the information in public data spaces when needed.












4.11.


Such better law-making processes would also significantly improve the legislative process at national level, with enhanced interoperability and transparency as well as positive results in terms of a significant reduction in single market barriers and administrative burden.






Brussels, 16 July 2025.


The President


of the European Economic and Social Committee

Oliver RÖPKE
               





(1)  Based on National Act No 222/2016 on the Collection of Laws and International Treaties and therefore mandatory for all entities participating in the law-making process.

(2)  EESC Employers’ Group study ‘A Business-Centric Approach to Cutting Red Tape – From Complexity to Clarity: Reducing EU Regulatory Burdens with AI’: https://www.eesc.europa.eu/en/news-media/press-releases/reducing-eu-regulatory-burdens-ai-eesc-employers-group-present-new-study.

(3)  Developed by the Czech Chamber of Commerce, the e-calendar of legal obligations of entrepreneurs shows their obligations, based on a thorough analysis of the legal system: https://www.pespropodnikatele.cz/.

(4)  The “Simpler and Faster Europe” Communication.




ANNEX
Image: Proposed model for the EU legislative process with the use of three templates for texts, impact assessments and tables summarising obligations








ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2025/5146/oj
ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)