By Chris Jones - 26th September 2005
New moves to scrap Brussels red tape is only the beginning, Europe’s enterprise and industry chief Gunter Verheugen told MEPs on Tuesday.
The European Commission vice-president is seeking to “counter the idea that the EU is a bureaucratic monster with a mania for regulation”.
“Only if we can succeed in cutting red tape, abolishing rules that have become pointless and providing industry and service-providers with an up-to-date legal framework that they can rely on in the long term will we be able to safeguard Europe as a site for business operations and improve its chances in global competition,” he said.
The assessment of legislative proposals that led to Tuesday’s decision would be repeated regularly, Verheugen said.
“This screening is the first test case for the credibility of our policy for better regulation and I therefore urge you to support us,” he told MEPs.
But this was only one of three approaches to reducing red tape that the commission would adopt over the next three years, Verheugen said.
“The commission intends to systematically review the entire existing legislative framework of the EU – more than 20 000 legal acts,” he said, stressing that the criteria on which this review would be based will be drawn up at the end of October.
Regulations on the automotive industry, waste management and construction were likely to be among the first to be examined, he said.
The third approach involved improving standards for future legislation by subjecting all legislative proposals to cost assessments and involving external experts in this process.
This, he stressed, would also include impact from small and medium-sized companies, those most affected by burdensome regulation.
Have your say...
Please enter your comments below.