Nicolai Haugsted
Germany, Italy and Denmark join push to freeze new EU legislation for 12 months.
Brussels has spent years trying to make life easier for European businesses by cutting paperwork, trimming regulations and promising simpler rules.
A group of EU countries now has a rather more ambitious suggestion: stop adding to the pile.
According to Digi24, eleven member states, led by Austria and including Germany, Italy, Poland and Denmark, are pushing for a 12-month pause on new EU legislation. Instead, they want Brussels to spend the year reviewing existing rules and making sure legislation already passed actually works.
Austria’s Europe Minister Claudia Bauer has given the proposal a suitably Brussels-friendly name – a “year of simplification.”
Eleven countries want Brussels to hit the break
Austria is joined by Germany, Italy, Poland, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Portugal and Hungary.
Their proposal appears in a discussion paper seen by Politico and calls for the European Union to temporarily shift its attention away from producing legislation.
“We can’t go on tabling new legislative proposals when existing rules have not been fully implemented,” Bauer said.
Rather than spending another year filling the EU’s legislative pipeline, the group wants Brussels to examine what is already there and concentrate on implementation.
The proposal does not amount to a permanent freeze on EU lawmaking. Instead, its supporters are pitching the 12-month break as a chance to clean up the existing rulebook.
Brussels is already trying to cut red tape
The European Commission has already launched so-called omnibus packages aimed at simplifying existing rules and reducing administrative burdens.
Bauer supports that effort but argues Brussels is fixing problems too late.
“What we are doing now is mostly ex-post simplification. We fully support the Commission’s omnibus packages but it cannot become the standard that we have new legislation and then a whole string of other acts to simplify it. Simplification should start before legislation is adopted.”
Put less diplomatically, the 11 governments would rather prevent unnecessary bureaucracy than spend years removing it afterwards.
New laws would face a tougher test
The proposal goes further than simply asking EU lawmakers to take a year off from producing new rules.
Future legislation should undergo stricter scrutiny before adoption, according to the countries behind the paper.
Officials would assess whether proposed rules are necessary and whether they strengthen European economic competitiveness. New regulations would subsequently face an impact review every five years.
Supporters are also keen to avoid portraying the proposal as a campaign to dismantle EU regulation altogether.
“Such an effort should not be viewed as deregulation, but as an exercise in legislative deep-cleaning,” a draft of the discussion paper states.
