Ex-ante impact assessment in surveyed parliaments

• Author: Anglmayer, Irmgard
• Pages: 13-31

EPRS | European Parli amentary Re search Servic e

13

2. Ex-ante impact assessme nt in sur veyed parliaments

Key finding s

Ex-ante impact assessment can make an important contribution to evidence-based policy-

mak ing, as it s purpose is to info rm law-making through evidence. At the same time, an impact

assessment increases the legitimacy of an initiat ive, since it just ifies a nd substantiates the

rationale for action, explores different options for the course of action, and it provides reflection

on wh o will be af fected an d in what way. All EU Member States perform impact assessment to

unde rpin t heir le gislat ive init iatives, alb eit to varyin g degree s and with great differences in f ocus

(e.g. simplification and burden reduction; cost-benefit o nly; integrated impact ass essment etc.)

International indices suggest that many EU countr ies have not y et reached their full potential

with regard t o ex-ante impact assessment (in particular: OECD, Better Regulation practices across

the EU; Bertelsmann Stiftung, Sustainable Governance Indicators 2019).

Some parliaments acro ss the EU have s tepped up t heir efforts to s crutinise their respective

governm ent’s impact assessment work in recent years, when deliberating at committee stage on

legislative propo sals prepared by the government. A few parliaments have taken this furt her and

also embedded impact asses sment work into their legislative function. In this respect, they

conduct their own impact assessments, either related to legislative initiatives tabled by

parliament o r amendments, or, in a few cases, related t o government init iatives, t o inform the

legislative process in the sens e of evidence-based policy-making. Therefore, parliamentary

impact ass essment touches upon th e two core powers of parliam ents: scrutiny and legislation.

Out of the 38 surveyed parli aments, 16 (15 EU-27 parli aments and 1 third-country

parliamen t) engag e in some f orm of ex-ante impact assess ment work, albeit in ver y different

ways and to greatly varying extent.

Out of these 16 parl iaments, 8 actively conduct their o wn impact assessm ents. These ar e:

7 EU-27 parliaments : Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Poland and

Sweden;

and 1 third-country parliament: Canada (budget estimates of proposals).

In addition, seven further parliaments carry out smaller-scale impact assessment work, e.g. in-

depth scrutiny of government impact assessment (Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Lithuania,

Portugal and Spain). Finally, the Latvian Parliament avails of impact assessment capacities, but

has not yet tested them.

A total of 12 parli aments across the EU-27 and 10 of the surveyed third-country parli aments

indicat ed they do not engage in any specif ic ex-ante impact assessm ent w or k bey ond

classical parliamentary scrutiny of the impact assessments accompanying government

proposals.

Bette r Regulation prac tices in natio nal parliaments

14

2.1. Level of engagement in parliamentary impact assessment

Table 1 – EU-27 par liaments and the Europ ean Parliame nt: level of engagement in ex-ante

IA

COUNT RY

no IA work

beyond classical

commi ttee

sc ru ti ny

smaller-scale IA

work (e.g. i n-

depth scrutiny)

parliaments' own

IA work

Aust ria

Belgi um

Bulgaria

Croat ia

Cyprus

Czec hia

Denmar k

Estoni a

Finland

France

Ger many

Greece

Hungary

Ireland

Ital y

Latvia

Lithuania

Luxemburg

Malt a

Nether lands

Polan d

Port ugal

Romani a

Slovak ia

Slove ni a

Spain

Sweden

Europe an Parl iame nt