Ten Years of European Impact Assessment: How It Works, for What and for Whom
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Erica Melloni
Abstract
European Impact Assessment (IA) has been in place for the last 10 years. By and large, this is deemed best practice within the context of the various endeavours in the direction of “Better Regulation” which have burgeoned in the last few years or so internationally. IA is based on common guidelines for all Commission services; the sharing of methodologies for impact analysis of the proposals; various forms of cooperation among General Directorates. In this article it is argued that IA has served to enhance the coordination role of the Secretariat-General and a more integrated decision-making process within Directorates. These outcomes have been favoured by a set of mechanisms triggered by the design of the procedure.
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Among the main suspects was the Commissioner Edith Cresson, accused of having appointed to a particularly well-paid position as consultant a retired dentist in her acquaintance (The Economist 1999). Besides accusations of nepotism, various other problems concerned, more generally, the management of European resources and control of spending programmes.
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Intervening at all stages in the European legislative process are committees entrusted with the task of assisting community institutions, serving three major functions in particular at the level of consultation, management and regulation. Application of a new piece of legislation, for example, may entail the need for more precise measures regarding its implementation. To this end, the law makes provision for the institution of a committee within the Commission to take the most appropriate decisions. The major procedures are subject to application of IA.
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In 2010 alone 17 basic training sessions were organised, with over 200 participants, and 25 advanced sessions with 325 participants, all implemented by outside experts; further training activities are performed by IA support units in their respective departments (IAB 2010).
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It may be when the new smart regulation strategy, entailing assessment tools applied throughout the policy cycle, actually kicks off. In any case, it will still be difficult to attribute the merits of a single policy to application of IA preparatory to decision-making.
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IIn June 2011, the Commission adopted a proposal for the next multiannual financial framework for EU spending (2014–2020), fixing overall budget allocations across high-level headings and key implementation choices. A series of follow-up proposals providing the legal basis for the sectoral spending programmes and establishing their specific budgetary arrangements were adopted during the course of 2011. For the first time in the preparation of the MFF, these sectoral spending proposals were systematically supported by impact assessments which were subject to scrutiny by the Board (IAB 2012).
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Of the recommendations made by the IAB, the majority concerned definition of the problem, the viable options and impacts (80–90% of the opinions), but attention also dwelt on the level of stakeholder consultation and the subsidiarity and proportionality of the analyses; in relatively fewer cases the opinions concerned the analytic evidence of the data supplied.
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Evaluations drawn from interviews held directly with top European Commission functionaries involved in the design and implementation of IA and regulation experts, June 2011.
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©2013 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Article
- The Production of Institutional Facts in Economic Discourse
- Different Paths of Transitional Justice in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland
- Homo Politicus – Towards a Theory of Political Action and Motivation
- Global Victimhood: On the Charisma of the Victim in Transitional Justice Processes
- Intervention and Promotion of Democracy. The Paradoxes of External Democratization and the Power-Sharing Between International Officials and Local Political Leaders
- Foreign Impacts Revisited: Islamists’ Struggles in Post-War Iraq
- Concentration of Decision-Making Power: Investigating the Role of the Norwegian Cabinet Subcommittee
- Referendum: A Complement or a Threat to Representative Democracy?
- MKs Usage of Personal Internet Tools, 2009: On the verge of a New Decade
- Ten Years of European Impact Assessment: How It Works, for What and for Whom
- Political Parties and Pension Generosity in Times of Permanent Austerity
- The Electoral Consequences of Welfare State Reforms for the Danish Social Democrats
- Electoral Competition and the Constituent-Representative Relationship
- Austria Inc. Forever? On the Stability of a Coordinated Corporate Network in Times of Privatization and Internationalization
- Development of Health Care in Lithuania and Estonia: Similar Conditions, Different Results
