Opening remarks by Executive Vice-President Šefčovič at the Regulatory Scrutiny Board Conference

EVP Šefčovič remarks at the RSB Conference

Dear Rytis, dear members of the Board,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a pleasure to be with you again.

This conference is an opportunity to reflect on the achievements and challenges of our better regulation agenda and the role that the Regulatory Scrutiny Board plays in it.

And I want to start by thanking you – Rytis and your fellow Board members – for the important contribution you are making to our policy-making.

Your work is more important than ever, given the challenging geopolitical and economic context.

Russia's unprovoked and unjustified war of aggression against the Ukraine and the subsequent energy crisis have severely affected our citizens, businesses and public budgets, adding to the hardship suffered during the Covid pandemic.

Thanks to common efforts and unprecedented measures put forward, the EU managed to address these crises, but challenges remain such as to ensure a business case for our green transition.

When I took over the European Green Deal portfolio last autumn, my priority has been to listen and engage with industry and other stakeholders.

I discussed with citizens and held a series of clean transition dialogues together with the President. And we presented its results in a Communication last month.

My focus was on getting the implementation right and to ensure sustainable competitiveness.

Our businesses and citizens voiced their frustrations, with burden reduction having taken centre stage.

Many of them welcome the actions we have taken, but are also pushing us to continue on this path. Yet, there is a clear acknowledgement of our reinforced focus on competitiveness and burden reduction.

Let me flag some of them:

First, with our 2024 Commission work programme we presented 41 initiatives to reduce unnecessary burdens from reporting requirements by 25%.

These are envisaged to bring cost savings of over 4 billion Euros, without undermining our policy objectives.

This work on cutting down on existing burden continues:

The Commission established standardised means of mapping reporting requirements.

The experts and representatives of our Fit For Future Platform also contribute with input.

And the feedback we received from many of you, our stakeholders, through a call for evidence last year fed into targeted rationalisation plans by Commission departments.

The forthcoming Annual Burden Survey will present progress on this.

Second, we need to flag that the implementation of our ‘One in, one out' approach is a success story.

It has so far acted successfully as a cost brake for new proposals, notably through the increased focus it has triggered on the quantification of costs and benefits.

In 2022, it delivered 7.3 billion Euro of expected net cost savings.

The results for 2023 are again positive, with details to be published in our Annual Burden Survey.

Third, the introduction of our competitiveness check ensures a better consideration of the impact of our proposals on the competitiveness of businesses.

Since March last year, all impact assessments submitted to the Regulatory Scrutiny Board now include such a mandatory annex that presents an integrated competitiveness analysis.

And as this includes a dimension on the SME competitiveness, this has also strengthened our dedicated ‘SME test'.

And here we see also real progress, not least because the Regulatory Scrutiny Board has been reinforced by two members and asked by the President in its revised mandate to place a particular focus on competitiveness impacts.

Let me use this opportunity to welcome the two new members of the Board – Mr Marek Havrda and Mr Rolf Höijer, who both have a rich experience and I am sure will greatly contribute to the Board's work.

The Competitiveness Check did not really introduce new elements, as our Better Regulation Toolbox is already very comprehensive, but it has ensured a political focus and thus a consistent application.

And the result can be seen in the annual report that the Board has presented. It shows for the first time a 100% assessment coverage of economic impacts.

To those, who are concerned that the focus on competitiveness has come to the detriment of other priorities, let me flag that the coverage of environmental and social impacts also increased by 16-17% each over the last year.

And I am pleased to have noticed that the Board concluded on the improved overall compliance with the new better regulation requirement that we introduced with our 2021 Better Regulation Communication.

I would like to thank the Regulatory Scrutiny Board for its incessant efforts to improve the quality of Commission impact assessments, evaluations and fitness checks.

And given that also your unique role – being independent yet ‘at arm's length' from the political centre – has also recently drawn attention from some stakeholders, let me also comment on this. Let's be clear that the set of the Board is in line with the OECD's recommendations on how to set up the quality control functions.

Its independent and objective quality checks are so important for us to ensure that we come up with good, evidence-based legislation.

This also requires that we better prepare for changes and to future-proof EU legislation. That's why the mainstreaming of strategic foresight in our better regulation agenda has been a particular priority for me.

We have produced annual Strategic Foresight Reports looking at global megatrends and how to strengthen resilience, reduce dependencies, and bolster Europe's open strategic autonomy in the race towards a net-zero economy.

We need such evidence-based anticipatory policymaking.

While the Commission's better regulation system can be considered as very advanced and I am pleased to note also the progress observed, we need to keep this momentum.

We also need to acknowledge that there is a time lag between our better regulation actions and the effects being actually felt by our businesses and citizens on the ground.

Looking forward, it is my conviction that we need agile and transparent practices to better engage with our stakeholders and remove administrative barriers.

Your involvement in giving us feedback and providing a ‘reality check' to co-design solutions and avoiding irritants is so crucial.

We need to continue to push for digitalisation and standardised data flows and re-use as well as make a better use of AI and satellite-based data, for instance, in the area of farming.

Above all though, we need you and we need to show you that we have listened.