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Impact Assessment and the Policy Cycle in the EU

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Giacomo Luchetta*
Affiliation:
LUISS “Guido Carli” University – Rome and Regulatory Affairs Programme of the Centre for European Policy Studies – Brussels

Abstract

With the Communication on Smart Regulation issued in October 2010, the European Commissiontried to foster a better management of the whole policy cycle. According to thatCommunication, amending policy proposals must be preceded by an ex-post assessmentof the current situation, allowing “closing the policy cycle”. This paper tries to answer thequestion whether the EU Impact Assessments System is fit to steer and close the policy cycle,and what is the relation between ex-ante IA and ex-post evaluation “on the ground” so far. This is done via a macro and micro analysis, based on scorecard approach and three casestudies, comparing the EU IA system performance with a theoretical benchmark derived from the EU policy document and process. The paper concludes that the EU Impact Assessmentsystem, as it is currently designed and implemented, is not yet fi t to steer and closethe policy cycle. To achieve this goal, all the analytical and empirical layers of the policycycle should be fully dealt with since the ex-ante phase.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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References

1 Communication from the Commission: “Smart Regulation in the European Union”. COM(2010)543

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5 Transposition refers to the incorporation of a EU norm in the national/local acquis. Implementation refers to the application of the EU norm, or the national/local norm transposing it, by national/local public administrations.

6 Enforcement refers to prosecution of violations of EU norms, or national/local transposition norms, both vis-à-vis the Member States and third parties.

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9 European Commission Impact Assessment Guidelines, SEC(2009)92, at p.6. The Commission Legislative Working Programme (CLWP) is a document providing an overview of the most important legislative initiatives which the European Commission plans to put forward in the following year(s). In practice, the CLWP is not a compulsory reference anymore. The decision whether non-CLWP proposals should undergo an IA is taken upon agreement between the SG and the competent DG.

10 The Evaluation Partnership, “Evaluation of the Commission's Impact Assessment System Final Report”, 2007, available on the Internet at <http://ec.europa.eu/governance/impact/key_docs/docs/tep_eias_fi nal_report_executive_summary_en.pdf> (last accessed on 29 October 2012), at p. 60.

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19 The database was created by the Centre for European Policy Studies, under the supervision of Dr. Andrea Renda. The database is currently unpublished, on file with the author. Data are partly reported in Renda, Andrea, Law and Economics in the RIA World, (Cambridge: Intersentia, 2011)Google Scholar. The methodology is similar to that described in Cecot, Caroline, Hahn, Robert, Renda, Andrea and Schrefler, Lorna, “An evaluation of the quality of impact assessment in the European Union with lessons for the US and the EU”, 2 Regulatory Governance (2008), pp. 405 et sqq. Google Scholar

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74 Ibid., at pp. 3–4; Renda, Law and Economics in the RIA World, supra note 19.

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