BETTER REGULATION: VERHEUGEN SAYS STREAMLINING EXERCISE NOT 'DEREGULATION'.

Mr Verheugen was presenting an initiative adopted by the Commission on October 25 which aims to modernise EU legislation and cut unnecessary red tape. The initiative, a Communication to the Council of Ministers and the Parliament, sets out a three-year programme due to finish in 2008 which seeks to streamline existing rules by scrapping outdated legislation, consolidating various pieces of legislation into one instrument, rewriting laws already in force and changing the legislative approach. The priority sectors, which the Commission considers the most heavily regulated, are the motor industry, waste and construction but it plans to move on to the foodstuffs, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals sector in the near future. Another major plank of the initiative involves reducing the reporting burden on companies, especially small businesses, by simplifying the procedures for providing statistics and modernising the customs code to make more use of electronic data exchange.

Addressing the Parliament's plenary session, Mr Verheugen said that simplification of legislation was essential for "improving competitiveness and conditions for more growth and jobs". Red tape and over-regulation put a brake on the EU's economic growth, he said, while an "excessive administrative burden puts especially small and medium-sized companies in a strait-jacket which prevents them creating jobs". Cutting red tape, abolishing rules which had become pointless and providing industry and service providers with an up-to-date legal framework would make it possible to safeguard Europe as a site for business operations, he continued.

However, unlike the first step in this Commission's better regulation exercise, a list of 68 as yet unadopted proposals to be withdrawn, which was criticised by MEPs, the new initiative will require the support of the Council of Ministers and the MEPs, particularly where existing regulations would be replaced by new ones. "If we want to succeed all three institutions will need to pull together", he told the EP. "The Commission can only make proposals how to simplify, the decision making - and hence the responsibility to deliver - lies squarely with the European Parliament and the member states", he told MEPs.

The first step in the initiative covers 222 pieces of legislation and over 1,400 related legal acts.

The exercise is based on four different approaches to legislation: repeal, codification, recasting or modifying the regulatory approach.

Repeal.

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