The European Commission is currently in the process of reforming the EU’s Better Regulation policy. Adriana Bunea and Idunn Nørbech write the Commission will have to carefully balance the need for faster policymaking against the democratic legitimacy provided by public participation.
The EU’s Better Regulation policy is a framework designed to streamline EU regulation. Yet the policy is currently the subject of much discussion in Brussels after the European Commission announced plans to reform it at the end of last year. This process began in January when the Commission issued a call for evidence and talks are now underway over how to design and implement the reform.
The aim of the reform process is essentially to shorten the time it takes to develop EU policy initiatives and take policy action. The reform is a response to Mario Draghi’s 2024 competitiveness report, which noted multiple inefficiencies in EU regulation.
But the proposed objectives are controversial. There are concerns the reform will compromise impact assessments and evidence-based policymaking procedures, as well as limit opportunities for stakeholder and public participation. The stakes are therefore high for the legitimacy and effectiveness of EU policymaking.
What do stakeholders think about the Better Regulation policy?
We have analysed public comments submitted in response to the Commission’s call for evidence. We were particularly interested in which stakeholders have answered the call and how much support the initiative has among them.
The call for evidence generated a total of 288 responses. As Figure 1 shows, all categories of stakeholders that usually participate in EU-level consultations answered the call, indicating that the issue is relevant for a diverse audience.
Business associations were most prominent, submitting 34.7% of comments, followed by NGOs (22.6%) and citizens (10.8%). A further 7.6% of comments were submitted directly by businesses, which brings comments representing business interests up to 42.3%.
Figure 1: Share of public comments by stakeholder category
Source: Compiled by the authors.
Building on previous research, we then constructed a measure of stakeholder support for the reform initiative. Specifically, we applied a semi-supervised machine learning model to the comments and attachments provided by stakeholders. This gives a score for the document, with a positive score indicating support and a negative score indicating a lack of support. Figure 2 shows the distribution of stakeholder support for the reform initiative across stakeholder types.
Figure 2: Variation in levels of stakeholder support expressed in public comments
Source: Compiled by the authors.
This analysis suggests a relatively modest spread in stakeholder support, with most observations clustered between -1 and 0.8. Consumer organisations, companies, trade unions, business associations and stakeholders categorised as “other” express on average more support towards the reform initiative.
Stakeholders representing the public interest, such as environmental organisations, public authorities, academic or research organisations, NGOs and citizens are notably less supportive of the initiative. However, there is a wide spread of opinion within categories, especially among business associations and NGOs.
For instance, among business associations, ACT – The App Association, which represents the small business technology developer community, was one of the most positive voices about the reform. In contrast, DIGITALEUROPE, which represents digitally transforming industries, was more critical.
A careful balancing act
The Commission intends to complete the initial process by the second quarter of 2026. It is likely the reform will result in significant changes, especially with respect to stakeholder consultations and public participation procedures in EU policymaking.
The call for evidence already hints at this by mentioning that “the Letta report suggests a ‘once-only’ approach to gathering essential information through stakeholder consultations”. This will most likely mean fewer opportunities for citizens to get involved directly in supranational policymaking. This in turn will negatively impact the procedural and democratic legitimacy of EU policymaking processes and have serious negative implications for the European Commission in the context of the balance of power between EU institutions.
For example, in a recent study we find that public participation during the policy legitimation stage of a draft legislative proposal by the Commission affects the number of changes made to these legislative proposals at later stages. Proposals enjoying high levels of stakeholder support at this stage are less likely to be amended by the European Parliament and the Council.
Similarly, public participation during the early policy formulation stage of a Commission proposal can significantly improve how the proposal is received by affected stakeholders. This research illustrates the direct and indirect ways in which public participation in the policy formulation process can strengthen the Commission’s procedural legitimacy and agenda-setting success.
Finally, in a further study we find that public and stakeholder consultations are the dimension of the EU’s Better Regulation policy that European stakeholders know the most about and appreciate the most. These concerns will have to be balanced carefully by the Commission as it seeks to adapt to the need for faster policymaking in a more volatile geopolitical climate.
Note: The research cited in this post is part of the CONSULTATIONEFFECTS research project funded by the European Research Council (grant no. 804288). The authors are grateful to Sergiu Lipcean for his valuable help with the data collection supporting figures 1 and 2. The article gives the views of the authors, not the position of LSE European Politics or the London School of Economics.
Image credit: artjazz provided by Shutterstock.
Discussion about this post