With the changing of the EC college at hand, a number of stockating exercises have been carreid out on the Better Regulation agenda of the EC. This opinion provides a comprehensive stance from the CoR both on the current state of Better Regulation, its strategic relevance for the EU and LRAs, as well as forward-looking proposals on how to better achieve the end goals of Better Regulation.
The opinion is also a follow-up to CoR activities regarding the Task Force on Subsidiarity, Proportionality and "Doing Less More Efficiently", as the CoR's stance on Better Regulation is indeed an aspect of its stance on 'Active Subsidiarity' and the need for a renewed, bottom-up approach towards EU law-making.
Considering the above, the opinion will also feed into the upcoming 9th Subsidiarity Conference of the CoR in Rome, on 22 November 2019.
The opinion on Better regulation: taking stock and sustaining our commitment provided a platform to condense and relay the CoR's institutional views on the better regulation agenda. As such it served as a key input for the 9th Subsidiarity Conference of the CoR, that brought in all relevant institutional, national and sub-national levels into a rich discussion on reinvigorating the EU policymaking process a way of reconnecting the Union with the citizens.
THE EUROPEAN COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS
states that the citizens of the European Union deserve good quality legislation that builds European added value, that is clear and well-communicated to those it is addressed to in terms of objectives, and that is monitored in terms of results. Because local and regional authorities implement and use approximately 70% of EU legislation, while also having the closest links to citizens, they must be directly involved in the process of creating good EU rules and the process of assessing their effectiveness;
endorses the European Commission's view that better regulation requires a joint effort, while at the same time emphasising that this initiative has a multi-level dimension, meaning that responsibility must be shared between all tiers of governance;
notes that in 2018 it launched a pilot project on a network of regional hubs for gathering local and regional data on EU policy implementation through specific questionnaires (RegHub). The Committee welcomes the fact that the Commission communication on better regulation confirms support for this project. It calls for further efforts to be made to improve this project and after the positive evaluation of the pilot phase, to integrate it into the system of EU policy and law-making;
agrees with the need to strengthen the application of the subsidiarity and proportionality principles in EU decision-making as part of a more overarching agenda for better regulation. The Committee calls for the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality to be given the highest priority and for an active approach to be taken to subsidiarity, as a way to ensure that bottom-up input is fully taken into consideration within the framework of existing competencies at EU level.