Debate: Better regulation: joining forces to make better laws
Date: THURSDAY, 7 JULY 2022
Speaker: Maroš Šefčovič
Language: EN

Indeed, in these challenging times, high-quality and efficient legislation is more important than ever so we can deliver maximum benefits for our citizens and businesses, and the way how we do it really matters. We need to work together, and I agree with Mr Wölken, to boost engagement, and to work on transparency and trust of our policies. To that end, we have been working to follow up on the communication we presented last year and this has included updating our better regulation guidelines and toolbox. I am sure that you are well informed that the toolbox now comprises 69 different tools, including a specific one focusing on all aspects of equality, fundamental rights and human rights.  Progress has been made and I am pleased that our new generation better regulation is recognised as one of the most advanced regulatory systems in the world. The OECD, for example, ranks us as best on stakeholder consultations and evaluation.  Mr Wölken was referring to the Regulatory Scrutiny Board and I want to underline that its independence and best practices are actually part of the success. I am convinced that they are doing an excellent job by giving us crucial feedback on the quality and coherence of impact assessments and the evaluation we carry out, and on whether proportionality and subsidiarity are being respected.  If I could react very briefly to the comments just made by Mr Wölken in this regard, I want to tell you that the Regulatory Scrutiny Board is truly independent. And the fact that they are very strict in their impact assessment and they are not afraid to return quite a few even very important legislative proposals just proves that they do their job well, because I think when we want to legislate we have to make sure that we legislate in a high quality, in a professional, in a good way.  And if – and it happens in every administration – a DG does not do its job properly, I think it’s only the right thing to send it back; so we would prepare and we’ll come in front of you with a high-quality legislation, with proper impact assessments, and with all the pluses and minuses properly evaluated. On top of it I also would like to reassure you that they are under no political pressure whatsoever and that they really do their job independently. We are working with them to make sure that all the new or additional transparency requirements are properly met.  I have to say that when I looked at your report I was very pleased to see that the European Parliament and the Commission, we share the same ambitions on many aspects of better regulation. I am also glad to say that many of your calls for actions have been already addressed, even though I agree – and this is what our debate will be about – how to make it even better, even of higher quality in the future.  If you look at some of your calls from the last period, you asked us to make sure that we would optimise our consultation process and we did it. We did it through our new call for evidence. I hope you would agree with me that now it’s more focused, it’s more user-friendly, and it’s available in all official EU languages.  We are also more transparent on how replies are taken into account using new feedback tools. So if there was a complaint in the past, okay, we sent you our position but we never heard from you. It was a kind of black box. Now that’s not happening. We are giving the feedback. We are responding to the evidence or to the contributions we are receiving.  I also would like to thank the European Parliament and to all of you who participated in the Conference on the Future of Europe for pushing forward another very innovative idea and this is the use of the European Citizens’ Panel for even closer consultations with our citizens on our proposals. And I am also glad to tell you that we are now looking into the way how to use the digital platform we used for the Conference for even better consultations and better reach out, especially to younger citizens who are used to the digital tools. And I believe it would definitely give them a stronger voice.  In addition, we are working on a more user-friendly repository of evidence for all legislative acts, evaluations and data sets to improve transparency and accessibility, to further improve the analysis and reporting on key economic, social and environmental impacts, in particular linked to the green and digital transitions. And our dedication to the twin transition is reflected in the adoption of the ‘do no significant harm’ and ‘digital by default’ principles, which I know are very important to this House, and we had several debates on these in the committee or in the plenary or bilaterally. We also perform systematically a climate consistency check, which is very, very important, as this morning’s debate on the heatwave and drought has confirmed.  Our 2022 Strategic Foresight Report, published last week, looks at reinforcing synergies resulting from twinning and the twinning of green and digital transitions. And overall, we have mainstream strategic foresight to ensure that our legislation is fit for the future.  Mr Wölken was also making reference to out ‘one in, one out’ approach which we have further integrated in our approach to help minimise regulatory costs for citizens and businesses. And I can reassure you again that this is not a mechanical, this is not a deregulatory exercise, but one based on the new working methods with improved efforts on quantification. We started with a pilot project last year and will report on its outcome in this year’s annual burden survey where we will have more data, and I believe that you will make your own assessment of the process. And the future additions of the burden surveys will then report on overall offsetting, not only where the burden is coming from, but how we are going to offset it.  And I am also glad to see that Parliament is also very ambitious as we are when it comes to the impact assessment. There were, of course, cases for reasons of political urgency, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, where it has been impossible to carry out a proper impact assessment. But when there is such a case, we will, and we did it also in the past, explain the reason why we could not do the impact assessment, and we produced a report with all the evidence within three months for your very detailed examinations.  I would like also to underline that we do not always need the impact assessment, such as when the proposals concern matters where there is little or no choice available or where no significant impact is reasonably expected. Regarding delegated and implementing acts, they are usually defined by empowerments in the basic acts, which does not give much choice for the Commission. However, we agree that there are instances where such analyses can be useful and we appreciate the European Parliament bringing such cases to our attention.  Honourable Members, I would like to congratulate the European Parliament for a very important step you have taken. You established your own dedicated directorate to look at the impact assessment and the European added value. This has been an important step so that better lawmaking does not just remain a common objective but, with your directorate, it also has become a common effort. And I applaud that Parliament has started to carry out its own impact assessment related to substantial amendments introduced by co-legislators. The Council is not there yet, but we all need to work together as otherwise we risk missing links and we risk being ineffective. The Commission stands ready to re-engage and engage collectively with Parliament and the Council to give even greater effect to our joint commitment to better regulation.  And I would conclude by calling upon all of us to join forces to deliver on our ambitions for our citizens and businesses, and I really would like to thank you not only for great cooperation, for a very important report, and for all the communications we had in the meantime on how to make our regulation better for now and for the future.