Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-04-04-Speech-2-233"
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".
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to try once more to explain what this is all about, and what it is not about. It is not about less legislation, nor about worse legislation. It is not about deregulation, nor about neoliberal free-market radicalism. It is purely and simply about shaping the European legal system such as to make it understandable to the public, and such that the European economy can use it for growth, investment and job creation. It is really the simplest thing in the world, and I am astonished time and again at the kind of motives being attributed to such a clear, unambiguous concept.
I wholeheartedly agree with those of you here who have said that the final decision on the validity of an impact assessment cannot lie with those who performed it, and that work on an impact assessment cannot be carried out exclusively by those making the law associated with it. That is exactly the way President Barroso and I see it. We are discussing the best possible solution. Indeed, in his introductory statement, the President said that he is considering establishing an independent authority under his own responsibility for screening impact assessments. We are ready and willing to continue our dialogue with Parliament, therefore. The same goes for the comitology procedure, in which, indeed, we largely endorse Parliament’s requests, and also for all the other ideas that have been expressed here.
I should just like to impress upon you once more that this exercise should not be dealt with in a technical, bureaucratic or formalistic way. It is truly a highly political exercise. It is intended to help reinforce public confidence in the system of European integration as a whole, and to help provide our economy with a stable, reliable framework, so as to resolve the great social issue of our time, namely that of the future of our jobs.
Whether or not we believe that we have too many European laws or that these may not always be good enough is irrelevant. We are not talking about a matter of belief, but about an alarmingly large proportion of the European public being convinced that that is the case. We are talking about European entrepreneurs and trade unions unanimously saying that that is the case. Too much bureaucracy, too many laws, overly complicated laws, too many unnecessary restrictions. It does not matter if this is really the case; what matters is that those for whom we make the laws are convinced that it is. That is why we had to do something.
The ‘better lawmaking’ exercise proposed by the Commission uses all the instruments that have been mentioned here – various ways of simplifying and modernising legislation without changing its content. To reiterate: the important thing is not to change the substance of regulations, but to make them user friendly and transparent.
I would once more solicit Parliament’s support. In reality, of course, we are concerned here with two large projects, two different projects, one of which is the retroactive screening of the whole corpus of legislation.
Let us not fool ourselves, however. When European integration was still in its infancy, the attitude towards the adoption of legislation was quite different from that which prevails today, and, going back a little further, astonishing things are to be found in the annals of our statute books. No one is denying that modernisation is needed there. The screening of the whole corpus is no simple matter, and I should be very much in favour of our agreeing on common procedures for this, too, and not just with regard to codification, where this has already been done.
A separate issue is how to make regulations or laws in future. The issue of impact assessments plays a quite fundamental role in this connection. I agree with all of you here who have said that it is essential in a democracy that the legislature knows the consequences its action will have for those affected. Of course, that does not mean that the legislature will refrain from acting once in possession of that knowledge. It will always be a matter of judgment.
If the Commission were to say that a piece of legislation would incur costs to the economy of EUR X billion but that, on the other hand, this legislation had to be presented in order to meet the public’s need for health protection, the decision would not be a difficult one. The Commission would then say that the protection of public health takes precedence, even if it costs money.
I should like to make it clear here that impact assessments do not automatically mean that, should it emerge that one of our actions also incurs costs, we simply say: we shall not do it. It is a case of knowing exactly what we are doing.
Some important thoughts have been expressed here on the issue of how best to organise such impact assessments, and I can tell you quite frankly that a discussion on this issue is currently under way in the Commission, and both President Barroso and myself are truly of the opinion that the current system needs to be changed."@en1
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