Press Release: Better regulation – a European success story

The strategic review on Better Regulation in the European Union tabled by the European Commission on 28 January, 2009, showed that better regulation is a core component of Europe's response to the economic and financial crisis. The review showed that citizens and companies, in particular small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), already benefit from simplified measures and administrative costs savings. Thanks to radical simplification some 1,300 acts, representing around 10 % of the acquis or 7800 pages of the Official Journal, have been proposed for removal so far. The administrative burden reduction measures already presented or foreseen, represent savings in excess of €30billions. Today's proposal on VAT alone amounts to €18 billion in savings. The Commission's leadership on administrative burdens has inspired most Member States and 21 of them have put in place at national level ambitious national programmes to reduce administrative burdens. Finally the Commission will continue to improve the quality of all new legislation it produces by further upgrading the quality of its impact assessments. It will do this by strengthening the subsidiarity check, improving the consultation of stakeholders, and by assessing more thoroughly impacts on, for example, SMEs, administrative burdens, fundamental rights, consumers and regions.

European Commission: MEMO/09/31: Radical simplification of EU law continued in 2008 http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/09/31&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

European Commission: MEMO/09/30: Cutting administrative burden under full steam http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/09/30&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

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