Ensuring competitiveness and sustainable, inclusive growth

Brussels [ENA] On 27th of February the Council adopted conclusions entitled "Ensuring competitiveness and sustainable, inclusive growth". In its conclusions, the Council stresses the importance of principle-based and rigorous impact assessments, taking into account both the costs and benefits. It expresses full support for an impartial regulatory scrutiny board within the Commission.

It notes the Commission's intention to apply the so-called "one in, one out" instrument and highlights that this regulatory offsetting approach should not lower social and ecological standards while maximising the benefits of regulation for business and citizens. . It reiterates its commitment to the "think small first" principle and the need to systematically consult SMEs and micro-enterprises. It welcomes the announced replacement of the REFIT platform by the Fit-for-Future platform and calls on the Commission to ensure the visibility of the new platform. Finally, the Council underlines the importance of ex-post reviews and recalls the need for a set of minimum quality standards.

The Council adopted a set of conclusions in the context of its better regulation agenda. These conclusions touch upon the quality of impact assessments, the need for policymakers to take into account the particular interests of small and medium-size enterprises, starts-ups and micro enterprises, as well as to improve methods of checking whether existing EU laws remain fit-for-purpose. Better regulation plays an important role in achieving a competitive, sustainable and inclusive EU economy. It ensures evidence-based decision making and policies that are fit-for-purpose.

The better law-making agreement aims to improve the way the EU legislates and to ensure that EU legislation better serves citizens and businesses. It should make the EU legislative process more transparent, open to stakeholder input and easier to follow. It will also help assess the impact of EU law for small and medium-sized enterprises, local industry and ordinary citizens. It will introduce a new agreement between the EU institutions, designed to make cooperation between them smoother and clearer.

One of the main aims of the better law-making agreement, also known as 'better regulation' or 'smart regulation', is to ensure that EU policies and laws achieve their objectives at minimum cost and administrative burden. It is a way of working to ensure that political decisions are prepared in an open, transparent manner, informed by the best available evidence and backed by the comprehensive involvement of stakeholders. Better regulation covers the whole policy cycle - policy design and preparation, adoption, implementation, application, evaluation and revision. For each phase of this cycle, there will be specific principles, objectives, tools and procedures to make sure that the EU has the best regulation possible.