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Yes, it’s possible to put an end to European regulatory inflation

Standards production is in the European Union’s DNA. Like the scorpion in the fable that only knows how to sting, the EU has the reflex, when faced with a new subject, to do what it does best: legislate. The result? The proliferation of European standards.

The Draghi Report made clear how this sting of regulation is dragging down Europe’s competitiveness. A situation Member States generally make worse when transposing European directives into national law.

So, what is the EU, now aware of its economic decline, doing to remedy it? Not much. We are living in an era where our leaders prefer to report on our problems. But the truth is, we have the solutions. What we don't have is the institutional will to act on them. 

Let's start with the Commission, within which rules are initiated by virtue of the monopoly of legislative initiative that it enjoys under the European Treaties, and which is one of its main powers. The Commission can simply propose fewer rules and regulations. There is nothing to stop a European commissioner from requiring their departments, that is to say the civil servants under their authority, to propose fewer rules. There is no more of a “deep state” at the European level than in the Member States; European civil servants follow orders. But they should not be left without instructions.

Let us imagine, however, that the Commission, despite the widely shared view that there are too many rules, refuses to reduce its production. The Commission is only an executive. The elected European Parliament can censure it. The Member States, gathered in the Council, can order it to present fewer proposals. Both could even reduce the Commission’s budget, the supreme weapon.

The first Von der Leyen Commission showed that she could deeply annoy many Member States and yet keep her job in a second term. However, the Commission is not able to float free of political reality. If the Member States and/or Parliament clearly and firmly ask it to present fewer initiatives, it will do so.

Let us take this scenario one step further and imagine that the Commission were to persist. This would clearly be a serious problem because it would undermine the balance of powers, especially on the part of an unelected body. However, a solution still exists. Because we should not forget that initiatives proposed by the Commission are adopted in law by the Council or by the Council and Parliament. It is therefore sufficient for the Council and/or Parliament to indicate to the Commission that, in the event of its possible refusal to moderate itself, they will take responsibility for stopping this regulatory burden.

European regulatory inflation is not inevitable. But why then does it persist despite mechanisms in place to curb it? One essential explanation: the disagreements between Member States have reached such noxious levels that they are no longer capable of knowing what they want and agreeing to reject a text submitted to them for approval.

A version of this article originally appeared in Le Monde.

Bruno Alomar, former senior official at the European Commission, is a senior advisor at FIPRA and author of Reform or Oblivion: 10 years to save the European Union (2018).

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