The First Vice-President of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans presented, on Tuesday 19 May, his programme for “Better Regulation”. By increasing the number of impact assessments of legislative plans, the Commission is clearly trying to calm euro sceptics. The Commission is also looking to win favour from civil society by improving transparency and consultations for when texts are being drawn up. Despite this, NGOs and trade unions are very sceptical and see this initiative not as a way of improving regulation, but as an increase in bureaucracy to the detriment of politics.
Reviewing the process of drawing up and adopting legislation. Frans Timmermans, the First Vice-President of the Commission, repeated that the body must be big on the “big things” and more modest when it comes to the “little things”, as he presented his plan to improve European legislation. The European executive, after reducing the number of legislative proposals for 2015 (23 compared to an average of 80 per year), is looking into its working methods.
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