Title page 1

Contents 1

Executive summary 1

1. Introduction 2

2. What is 'better regulation'? 2

3. Why is the better-regulation system still perceived as falling short? 3

3.1. The volume of legislation continues to increase 4

3.2. Major proposals are increasingly accompanied by impact assessments but there are significant exceptions 5

3.3. The quality of analysis is variable 7

3.4. Efforts to improve the legislative stock are falling short 7

4. Policy recommendations 8

4.1. Recommendation 1: legislative flow 8

4.2. Recommendation 2: assessment throughout the legislative process 9

4.3. Recommendation 3: assessment of delegated and implementing acts 9

4.4. Recommendation 4: professionalisation through establishing a centre of analytical expertise 9

4.5. Recommendation 5: streamlining and simplifying analytical requirements 12

4.6. Recommendation 6: externalisation of ex-post evaluations 12

References 13

Tables 4

Table 1. Commission proposals and adopted acts under ordinary legislative procedure 4

Table 2. Delegated and implementing acts under ordinary legislative procedure 4

Table 3. Commission proposals and impact assessments 5

Boxes 6

Box 1. Why the quality of impact assessments matters: the example of 'Omnibus I' 6

Box 2. Examples of impact assessments based on a comprehensive and consistent analytical framework 10