A Simpler, Clearer and Better Enforced EU Rulebook

Greater focus on the subsidiarity and proportionality principles as part of regulatory discipline, including on empowerments for delegated and implementing acts.

Prioritising exhaustive regulations and complete harmonisation when regulating single market-related matters, where legally feasible and appropriate.

Regular and well-timed monitoring and evaluation clauses, and use of sunset clauses where appropriate, to keep legislation responsive to new developments.

Greater use of recast and codification techniques and ensuring consistency between sectoral and general legislation and between existing and new legal acts.

Identifying best-practice standard terms and provisions, with standard wording agreed between institutions where possible, and more focused recitals.

Setting realistic transposition and implementation timelines and consider systematically measures such as grandfathering clauses or gradual phase-in to facilitate implementation.

Further developing and using digital tools, like the EdiT electronic drafting tool, a new acquis management tool, while further enhancing the access point to EU law, EUR-Lex, and further developing the European Legal Data Space.

Setting up a network of legal quality correspondents across the Commission and introduce mandatory training for legal drafters based on updated guidance.

More robust monitoring and enforcement mechanisms in EU legal acts to ensure enforcement by design, including the prevention of incompatibilities with EU law at an early stage through prior notification mechanisms.

A wider range of initiatives with significant impacts, accompanied by an impact assessment and scrutinised by the Regulatory Scrutiny Board.

More focused impact assessments, based on an initial matrix of key impacts and a more proportionate approach.

Minimum requirements for urgent initiatives under accelerated pathways.

A simplified call for evidence to focus on key information for stakeholders.

Optimised and more flexible consultation timelines, taking account of holiday periods.

More integrated and flexible deployment of different consultation tools to avoid consultation fatigue and access a wide variety of views and inputs.

Direct automated notification to respondents of consultation summaries.

Updating the better regulation guidelines and the impact assessment and evaluation templates to reflect these improvements.

Continued work with the co-legislators to develop and implement a common methodology so that each institution assesses its substantial amendments.

Carrying out a regulatory deep cleaning as set out in the attached action plan.

Seeking further input from stakeholders to identify implementation challenges and simplification potential, including through consultations, implementation dialogues and reality checks.

Setting up a new high-level expert group – the Simplification Platform – to support simplification and burden reduction efforts.

Supporting Member States in their commitment to avoid gold-plating through a toolkit with best practices and transposition guidance.

Better and earlier detection of instances of gold-plating, through Commission tools and together with Member States.

Identifying key barriers and following up on gold-plating issues per Member State through the European Semester and the Single Market Enforcement Taskforce.

Resolving identified issues in the single market focus areas for enforcement swiftly and referring the persisting issues to the Court of Justice, where appropriate.

Faster infringement procedures over incomplete transposition of directives, through quicker reasoned opinions and systematic follow-up where Member States have not provided explanatory documents.

Fewer extensions of deadlines for Member States to reply to the Commission in infringement procedures.

Introducing the use of dedicated artificial intelligence tools to assist in speeding up transposition assessments, thus reducing administrative burdens without compromising accuracy and ensuring strict safeguards.

Reducing the number of long-lasting infringement cases by the end of this Commission’s mandate, with a particular focus on cases open for over five years that have not been referred to the Court of Justice.

More dissuasive financial penalties against Member States proposed to the Court of Justice.

Besides the existing scrutiny of the transposition of directives, better monitoring of EU regulations through a new IT tool to centralise Member State notifications where relevant, and to systematise implementation guidance and strengthen oversight by the Commission.

Better prevention of breaches of single market rules, making use of notification requirements under the Single Market Transparency Directive and the Services Directive.

Regulatory Deep Cleaning Action Plan – Annex 1

The regulatory deep cleaning of horizontal and sectoral digital legislation will seek to deliver regulatory simplification in digital areas crucial for Europe’s competitiveness. A Digital Fitness Check is being conducted to assess the cumulative effects of the digital rulebook on the EU's competitiveness, identifying synergies, and good practices, mapping applicable rules, reducing redundancies and duplications, and closing gaps. A key part of the Fitness Check is to examine the governance of the digital rules, and seek opportunities to strengthen their implementation and enforcement, not least to bring more coherence, consistency and predictability to businesses. It will look at best practices in consultation processes, cooperation among authorities, consistent enforcement and prevention of contradictory interpretations, and the reduction of administrative burdens.

The revision of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive will modernise and simplify rules for ensuring viewer protection and media pluralism. The regulatory deep cleaning of horizontal and sectoral digital legislation will look at the interplay of different rules, assessing how they interact and how their overlay impacts businesses from different sectors. It will focus on ensuring an efficient framework that streamlines requirements and eliminates overlaps, while preserving sector specificities. It will build upon existing simplification efforts including under the Digital Omnibus, and interface with evaluations of specific acts run in parallel. A wide-range of sectors are covered by general cybersecurity rules, as well as sector-specific regulations – such as the Directive on Security of Network and Information Systems, the Digital Operational Resilience Act, and the Regulation on Electronic Identification and Trust Services. When adopted by the co-legislators, the solution for incident reporting proposed in the Digital Omnibus will deliver an urgently-needed key operational step towards increased coherence.

The harmonisation of reporting requirements through digital tools, including the extension of the one-stop-shop and the revision of the Internal Market Information system, will facilitate the exchange of information, registration and payment. The eInvoicing harmonisation will address fragmentation and reduce burdens by enabling the re-use of data.