Our Goals
Local and regional authorities implement more than 70% of EU legislation and are therefore in a good position to judge its accuracy and effectiveness. Only if EU legislators take into account the regional and local perspective can European laws and policies be better implemented on the ground and achieve their objectives.
The goals of RegHub are to:
- Contribute to the EU’s better regulation efforts by bringing a local and regional perspective to the evaluation of EU legislation.
- Increase the involvement of local and regional authorities in the design of EU legislation and in the improvement of its implementation.
- Strengthen the links between local and regional authorities and EU institutions by promoting the sub-national perspective and creating opportunities for dialogue.
- Present and disseminate good practice examples for the implementation of EU law in regions, cities, and municipalities.
One of the ways in which RegHub pursues these objectives is through its role as a sub-group of the European Commission’s Fit for Future Platform (F4F), which involves conducting targeted consultations and working with the platform's rapporteurs, as well as sharing reports with the platform. Furthermore, RegHub works closely with institutional partners and research institutes and organises workshops and seminars in the framework of the European Week of Regions and Cities (EWRC).
Our Method
Since its involvement in the European Commission's Fit for Future Platform(F4F), RegHub's work has been organised in the following steps:
1. Contributing to the annual Fit for Future work programmeby consulting the hubs on relevant legislative texts to be reviewed by the European Commission.
2. Conducting targeted stakeholder consultations through the RegHub Network and making the results of these consultations available to the platform's rapporteurs.
3. Promoting the platform's opinions within the EU institutions.
RegHub's unique working method, namely targeted stakeholder consultations, has proven to be an effective tool to gather unique and granular information on the implementation of EU law.
The process involves, as a first step, the dissemination of questionnaires among the hubs (contact points in local and regional administrations), who, as a second step, reach out to targeted stakeholders, who implement the EU policy that is the subject of the consultation.
After collecting all the feedback, the hubs aggregate the stakeholder information and send their reply back to the CoR's RegHub Secretariat. The CoR then formulates recommendations based on this input.
RegHub and Fit for Future 2021
In 2021, RegHub consulted its members on the implementation of eProcurement and the INSPIRE Directive at local and regional level. The replies were analysed and fed into two Fit for Futureopinions on those topics. Furthermore, the results of two previous RegHub consultations (on ambient air quality and on cross-border healthcare) were also picked up in Fit for Future opinions. All opinions adopted by Fit for Future in 2021 are published on the platform.
Also in 2021, RegHub conducted its two-step consultation on 21st century rules for 21st century infrastructure. The results provide data for a special RegHub report that will be presented to the Fit for Future chair, Commission Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič.
RegHub and Fit for Future 2022
For its 2022 work programme, the Fit for Future Platform (F4F) has appointed CoR members Dr Mark Speich (EPP/DE) and Anne Karjalainen (PES/FI) as rapporteurs for the opinions on the End-of-Life Vehicles Directive (M. Speich) and the Governments Interoperability Strategy (A. Karjalainen). RegHub will conduct two targeted consultations on these topics in 2022. The corresponding Fit for Future opinions are expected to be adopted in Q4 2022.