The Development of RIA in the European Union: An Overview

Abstract

The European Commission has successfully managed to adopt and implement ex ante impact assessment procedures since 2003, and available data show that the IA documented are of increasingly good quality. Even though margins for improving the European Commission IA system persist, other EU institutions and almost all EU member states significantly lag behind in terms of IA implementation. The experience of past research projects, including the European Network for Better Regulation and the recent OECD EU15 project confirmed that at national level IA features a high adoption-implementation gap. This paper draws on EU and international experience to draw some recommendations, which include the need for more sophisticated legal and economic analysis in RIA, to make it a more credible instrument for ex ante policy appraisal; and the need for gradually introduced, carefully designed RIA system which take advantage of the enormous success obtained by other, simpler models, such as the Standard Cost Model for the measurement and reduction of administrative burdens.

Towards a taxonomy of agri-environmental regulations

“…13 This Board found that impact assessments (for all sectors) with a focus on environmental or climate policy objectives increased to 38% of all cases from an average of 23% in 2017-19. In 2020, 74% of all impact assessments quantified benefits and 83% assessed costs (Regulatory Scrutiny Board of the European Commission, 2020 [75]).…”

Law and Economics in the RIA World

“…IFC Better Regulation for Growth program, Regulatory Governance in Developing Countries, available online at: http://www.fias.net/ifcext/fias.nsf/AttachmentsByTitle /BRG_PapersWhatisit/$FILE/RegulatoryGovinDevCountries.pdf See also i.a. Renda, A. (2010), The Development of RIA in the European Union, paper presented at the World Bank Regulatory Reform Conference in Belgrade (Serbia), 13-14 September 2010. comparison between the US and EU agenda and better regulation strategy is performed more in detail.…”

Regulatory Quality in the European Commission and the UK: Old Questions and New Findings

“…First, the regular production of IAs -both the European Commission Directorates-General (DGs) and British departments -are heavy producers of assessments compared to the average EU member state. Second, there are oversight bodies (Wiener & Alemanno, 2010;Renda, 2010). The UK Regulatory Policy Committee (RPC), established in 2009, follows the experience of other European countries (like Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands) and the European Commission with oversight bodies.…”