1. DEBR in Luxembourg on 9 th and 10 th December 2004 Main topics of the Agenda. General introduction by Mr Dieudonné Mandelkern

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1 EPAN 44 th Meeting of the Directors General Responsible for Public Administration Mondorf-les-Bains, 9-10 June 2005 Directors and Experts of Better Regulation Progress Report 1. DEBR in Luxembourg on 9 th and 10 th December 2004 Main topics of the Agenda General introduction by Mr Dieudonné Mandelkern Implementation of the recommendations of the Mandelkern report in the new and future Member States: Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia and Bulgaria Future role of the DEBR: Self-assessment Presentations by the General Secretariat and the DG-Enterprise of the EU Commission Implementation of the Inter-institutional Agreement; Simplification Action Plan; Impact Assessment; Administrative Costs; Indicators of Regulatory Quality progress

2 Presentation by the OECD on the recent work concerning the «Independent Regulatory Authorities» 2. Future role of the DEBR The DEBR will continue to discuss two types of issues: exchange of national practices and issues at the EU level. The DEBR performs an advocacy role, promoting best practices and initiating new thinking. The exchange of national practices is a unique task, in the sense that it is not done in quite the same way elsewhere in the EUframework. The EU level issues do have other stages, most importantly the Council Working Group on Competitiveness and Growth. Overlap should be avoided. However, better regulation is not an institutionalized issue in the Working Group and the national representatives participating in its meetings are mostly not the national experts. The DEBR is capable of adding value to the EU level debate by staging a dialogue about issues that are not on the official EU agenda yet. Participants should be able to speak freely on such issues, not necessarily representing official national positions and not being committed to the outcome of discussions. In order to be able to have such discussions participants need to know the latest state of play. For that reason, the DEBR should continue to perform an information-sharing role for EU level issues. The DEBR as an informal group should not perform a monitoring role vis-à-vis the Commission. The DEBR was given a mandate from the Ministers of Public Administration to monitor the implementation of the Mandelkern report on their behalf. The DEBR does not need and should not have an official working program, beyond the very general focus agreed at the Rome meeting in 2003, as this would reduce the flexibility of its operation and would also jeopardize the informal character of its meetings by demanding concrete and timely results, which is not in line with the informal exchange of thoughts that is envisaged. The continued sponsorship of projects by the DEBR is a useful way of progressing work between meetings. Such projects on issues of joint concern to the participants can be pursued in smaller groups and reported at plenary meetings of the DEBR. However, because of its low frequency meetings, the DEBR cannot and should not aim to become the sole sponsor of multilateral initiatives. The DEBR is an informal meeting, and should therefore not formally be tied in with Presidency planning. However, there is benefit in sticking to the arrangement made at the DEBR meeting in Paris in 2000 that the country holding the Presidency has the first rights to host DEBR meeting(s). If it waives this right, other countries may offer to host a meeting instead. The host country will have considerable discretion to arrange the meeting as it sees fit, including the right to set the agenda and chair proceedings (or ask others to chair it for it). 2

3 At the DEBR meeting in London (17-18 March 2005), the Commission presented a communication to the Council and the European Parliament concerning Better Regulation for growth and jobs in the European Union. It states that in order to facilitate the elaboration of measures/indicators to improve the european regulation, the Commission will set up during 2005 a high level expert group with Member State delegates. This group will get the mandate to advise the Commission on improvement of regulation, in particular simplification measures and Impact Assessment. This group will be in charge to examine the EU and national legislation and will be the interface between the Commission and governments. Its main mission will be the improvement of regulation on business, industry, consumers, social partners and citizens in order to realize the social and environmental objectives and in order to diffuse best practice and the know-how of improvement of the regulation in the EU. Through this high level group, the Commission will strengthen the cooperation with the Member States by supporting the national initiatives in Better Regulation (in particular, indicators of regulatory quality and assessment of BR management). In this order, the quality of EU legislation will be reinforced, in particular by a common analysis if Member States are implementing EU legislation by «gold-plating». The practical experience will contribute to improve future EU legislation. 3. DEBR in London on 17 th and 18 th March 2005 Main topics of the Agenda Benchmarking Project: RIA second phase in order to compare Impact Assessments in different Member States on the same regulation: Groundwater Directive was chosen; this project will help the DEBR to contribute towards the development of a common methodology for RIA at the European level 3 parallel sessions on the report of Working Group on Competitiveness and Growth (Simplification, IA); Domestic simplification in Italy and France; Implementation of European legislation and ex-post evaluation project Strategic Communication for Better Regulation (Sweden and Flanders) How to avoid Regulatory Creep (presentation by the UK BR Task Force) Indicators of Regulatory Quality (cf. report by University of Exeter ordered by Commission, DG Enterprise) SIGMA, joint initiative by the OECD and the EU: project to review regulatory management capacities of the new EU Member States 3

4 4. Mid-term program of the DEBR In particular, the Group will focus on the areas of: - Impact Assessment - Consultation - Simplification - Access to Regulation - Transposition - Effective Structures In its work, the Directors and Experts of Better Regulation will also seek to: - support the strengthening of the structures, both formal and informal, for Better Regulation across the EU, including effective implementation of the Inter Institutional Agreement on better lawmaking; - taking account of the enlargement of the EU, place particular emphasis on the views and priorities of the new Member States. 5. Draft Mid-term program of the DEBR Better regulation has gained a high position on the European agenda and is one of the priorities of the EU Member States. In order to ensure future progress on better regulation issues and to better achieve the Lisbon goals, cooperation between the Member States should seek to continuously improve the quality of legislation/regulation at Community and national level in order to increase competitiveness and productivity as well as reduce costs and simplify procedures. In future, work in the field of better regulation should continue in the field of Member States implementation in the areas of Impact Assessment, simplification, access to regulation, consultation, transposition and effective structures, reduction of administrative burdens, while monitoring the state of play in relation to the implementation of the recommendations of the Mandelkern Report. Whilst avoiding duplication with work undertaken and in the margins of Community institutions and whilst respecting the formal EU decision-making mechanisms, the work should be oriented towards the following activities to reach the abovementioned goals: Supplementing the work towards a common methodology for Impact Assessment as a possibility in the Inter-Institutional Agreement on better lawmaking; in this regard, the effects on competitiveness at European level should be taken into account; 4

5 6. Report Promoting the application by Member States of a future common methodology; Continuing the discussions on the indicators of regulatory quality, benchmark projects on Impact Assessments and the increased use of alternative regulation possibilities; Facilitating wider training processes in regulatory affairs and building competencies in Impact Assessment, and discussing joint training initiatives with the Commission and the Member States in Impact Assessment. This would also complement existing efforts to promote use of the Commission s Impact Assessments by the Council and the move towards a possible common methodology under the Inter-Institutional Agreement on better lawmaking. It would be important to ensure that the focus remained practical and demand-led responses to the real needs of Member States. Ireland has agreed to convene a sub-group of the DEBR Group to further these issues. Furthermore, the Directors and Experts of Better Regulation should aim to: Support the Six Presidency Initiative on advancing Regulatory Reform in Europe by the Irish, Dutch, Luxembourg, UK, Austrian and Finland Finance Ministers from 7 th December 2004 in so far it is not duplicating activities in the Community framework. At their meeting in Maastricht on the 22 nd and 23 rd November 2004, the Directors General expressed their continued interest in the activities of the DEBR-group and welcomed in this respect the initiative of the Luxembourg Presidency to entrust Mr Mandelkern to make an inventory of all the groups working on this subject at the European level, in order to deliver a first report on the state of play of (all) the written recommendations since November Finally, two experts, Dr Konzendorf and Dr Wordelmann, were asked to do this report which shows the state of play of all documents produced since November 2001 concerning BR: state of play of all groups (Council, Parliament, Commission), formal or informal, dealing with the BR topic, especially in relation with RIA, consultation, simplification, access and structures and indicators and gives a few possibilities for the development of the DEBR-group. 5