Implementation, Simplification & Better Regulation

Simplification Platform will advise the Commission on reducing unnecessary burdens and modernising EU law across national, regional and local application. It will examine gold-plating that can fragment the single market, encourage coordination on simplification, consider digital solutions to reduce red tape, particularly for SMEs, and assess legislative complexity and density. The Platform comprises individual experts, Member States, the Committee of the Regions and the European Economic and Social Committee, supporting the Better Regulation agenda.

The Commission's communication seeks to make EU law easier to design, implement and enforce, with a strategic focus on the single market. It introduces simplicity by design, more focused impact assessments, clearer access to legislation, realistic implementation deadlines and digital drafting and acquis-management tools. It also calls for enforcement to be considered in legal design and accompanies these measures with an Action Plan for Regulatory Deep Cleaning.

The Regulatory Deep Cleaning Action Plan aims to address inconsistencies, outdated, overlapping and redundant provisions, as well as overly complex rules that may hinder competitiveness and innovation. The Commission identifies priority areas including goods and services, financial services, customs, taxation, health and food safety, agriculture, transport, energy, climate, environment, digital matters, housing and permitting. It accompanies wider measures on simpler lawmaking and stronger implementation and enforcement.

The Commissioner will lead a whole-of-Commission drive to make EU rules simpler, faster and better enforced. The agenda prioritises early implementation strategies with Member States, hands-on “reality checks” with practitioners, and twice-yearly implementation dialogues in every portfolio feeding annual progress reports and resolute enforcement against fragmentation and gold-plating. New quantified targets will cut recurring administrative costs by at least 25% (35% for SMEs), underpinned by omnibus simplification packages, streamlined permitting, and digital-by-default delivery. A rolling stress-test of the entire acquis will consolidate and clarify rules; reinforced SME/competitiveness checks, proportionate use of delegated/implementing acts, and digital tools (such as a European Business Wallet and once-only interoperability) will lower costs and speed compliance.

The Commission will deliver quantified, mandate-wide cuts to red tape: at least 25% for all firms and 35% for SMEs, applied to all administrative costs, not only reporting. Using Eurostat’s €150 billion estimate of recurring administrative costs (2022), this implies €37.5 billion in annual savings by end-mandate. Progress will be tracked in yearly enforcement and implementation reports, with dedicated SME measures and avoidance of national “gold-plating”. The drive complements “one-in, one-out” and will be executed via prioritised simplification packages and Omnibus proposals, while co-legislators preserve savings in negotiations and Member States streamline transposition and application.

Annual Enforcement and Implementation Progress Reports provide the Council and European Parliament with updates on simplification, implementation and enforcement within each Commissioner's area of responsibility. The 2025 Annual Progress Reports cover 1st January to 31 July 2025. They address simplification and stress testing, implementation support, enforcement, progress made and concrete next steps across the Commission's portfolios.

Just like the EU’s rules, its better regulation framework must be simplified to enable a simpler and faster Europe. The Commission will therefore apply a more rigorous and structured application of the proportionality principle in better regulation and put forward a communication to that effect in the first half of 2026.

The Commission will stress-test the EU’s digital rulebook to cut costs, remove overlaps and improve coherence, with results due in Q4 2025. It will assess cumulative burdens on businesses across data legislation, cookies and tracking, cybersecurity incident reporting, AI Act implementation, and the European Digital Identity framework, feeding simplification proposals. The exercise will complement the Digital Omnibus and examine cross-border fragmentation and costs, without lowering protections. Each Commissioner will review laws in remit under the steer of the Commissioner for Implementation and Simplification, drawing on “reality checks” with practitioners to ground changes in practice.

To equip a larger, more contested Union, the Commission will pursue institutional reforms, up to targeted Treaty changes where they clearly improve capacity to act and democratic accountability. It couples faster, simpler law-making with rigorous implementation: stress-testing the acquis, reducing administrative burdens, and renewing an interinstitutional pact on better lawmaking. Each Commissioner will hold biannual implementation dialogues and publish annual progress reports, while enforcement against Single Market fragmentation is stepped up. The objective is a Union that legislates less and delivers more so Europe can decide and act at the speed today’s challenges demand.

This measure is part of the Commission communication A Simpler, Clearer and Better Enforced EU Rulebook, adopted on 28 April 2026, under the heading of regulatory discipline. The Commission says that regulatory discipline is a means to ensure that the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality are applied consistently in EU law, so that the Union can focus its efforts and resources on areas where EU-level action is necessary, brings the most added value and is proportionate. It says the same discipline must apply when laying down implementing rules, to prevent EU legislation from becoming too long, complex and costly. In upcoming legislative proposals the Commission will seek to propose only well-designed empowerments for delegated and implementing acts which are strictly necessary to implement and enforce EU rules or international obligations. It calls on the European Parliament and the Council to apply the same discipline throughout the legislative process.

For every major EU law, the Commission will prepare a structured implementation strategy that maps legal, administrative and practical challenges, sets timelines, and defines targeted support. These strategies will use explanatory templates and national transposition roadmaps, track progress, and flag “gold plating” that fragments the Single Market. Delivery will be backed by expert-group peer support and EU agencies, plus investments in administrative capacity, digital tools and data (e.g. TSI, ComPAct, IMI, Single Digital Gateway). The Commission will hold twice-yearly implementation dialogues with stakeholders and publish annual progress reports to surface hurdles and simplification opportunities. Hands-on “reality checks” with practitioners will verify costs and fix bottlenecks early; where dialogue fails, swift infringement action will follow.

The proposed innovation stress test would examine legislation while it is being prepared or revised, with the aim of making the regulatory framework more innovation-friendly. It forms part of the planned European Innovation Act, which seeks cross-sectoral conditions for bringing innovative ideas to market. The Act is intended to address commercialisation, collaboration, market access, finance, talent, infrastructure, procurement, regulatory sandboxes and coordination of national and EU policies.

The Commission will seek a renewed agreement with Parliament and Council to embed simplification and implementation across the full legislative cycle. It will align subsidiarity/proportionality checks, apply a shared methodology to estimate the costs of significant amendments, and integrate SME/competitiveness tests up front. Co-legislators will commit to fast-tracking simplification packages, limiting gold-plating and streamlining empowerments for delegated/implementing acts. Annual progress reporting will create accountability on enforcement and burden-reduction targets, while “digital-by-default/once-only” delivery and interoperability requirements are designed in from the start. Together, the institutions will stress-test the acquis to cut administrative costs without lowering standards.

In its communication A Simpler, Clearer and Better Enforced EU Rulebook, adopted on 28 April 2026, the Commission proposes a common methodology so that the European Parliament and the Council each assess the substantial amendments they make to Commission proposals. The Commission says that in practice the institutions proposing such amendments do not assess their impact, despite their commitment to do so, and that this leaves the analysis of a law's expected impacts incomplete. It proposes three strands of joint work. First, the institutions should reach a shared understanding of what constitutes a substantial amendment, for example extending a proposal's scope to micro-companies or SMEs or adding compliance costs or reporting requirements. Second, the institution tabling such an amendment would assess its impacts and quantify costs or savings using a simple cost calculation method, with the standard cost model for administrative costs. Third, the impacts would be presented in a concise template covering expected costs and benefits, affected stakeholders, and effects on competitiveness and innovation.

This measure forms part of the Commission communication A Simpler, Clearer and Better Enforced EU Rulebook, adopted on 28 April 2026. The Commission defines gold-plating as a Member State introducing, when transposing or implementing EU law, a wider scope, stricter rules or obligations that go beyond the EU legal act. It says it will work with Member States on a toolkit of best practices and criteria to identify and avoid gold-plating, support them during transposition of directives, use implementation dialogues, reality checks and the European Semester to detect gold-plating, and take the risk into account when drafting proposals. On non-implementation, the Commission notes that in 2025 almost 70% of new infringement procedures stemmed from late transposition. Where a Member State notifies no transposition measure, it will as a rule issue a reasoned opinion within six months of the letter of formal notice, and it will be systematically more stringent in calculating the penalties it proposes to the Court.

Reality Checks are hands-on diagnostics that bring Commission services to practitioners to test whether EU rules work in real life. Through targeted technical exchanges, teams identify hurdles in authorisations, permitting, control and compliance, capture good practices, and map where national transposition or “gold-plating” adds cost or fragmentation. Findings verify the assumptions behind legislation, quantify burdens and expected savings, and assess if planned simplifications are realistic. Results feed directly into evaluations and fitness checks, the gradual stress-test of the acquis, and the design of future simplification packages, ensuring evidence-based fixes and quicker, cheaper compliance without lowering standards.

Will be mandatory for proposals with business impacts, combining a reinforced SME test with a sector-focused competitiveness lens. The check assesses four dimensions (i.e. cost/price effects, international competitiveness, innovation capacity, and specific SME impacts) and examines cumulative burdens across value chains. Findings will shape mitigation (e.g. lighter regimes, phased timing, digital-by-default delivery) and be transparently presented in impact assessments, with stronger analysis of indirect effects on SMEs. Fitness checks will also report on efficiency for SMEs. Results feed progress reports and a stress-test of the acquis, ensuring no new Single Market barriers and aligning rules with Europe’s overall growth agenda.

The Commission will audit mandates, governance and resources of Single Market authorities to eliminate overlap, gaps and conflicting procedures. The review will benchmark performance, map workflows, and propose consolidation, clarified competences, interoperable IT, joint inspections and mutual recognition of decisions. It will align agency tasks with the ‘Terrible Ten’ barrier agenda and forthcoming Omnibus simplifications, reducing compliance friction for SMEs and small mid-caps. Deliverables include a reform blueprint and actions to streamline supervision in priority sectors. Expected outcomes: accountability, faster enforcement, consistent interpretation of EU law, lower costs, and improved consumer protection.

Delegated and implementing acts allow the Commission, and exceptionally the Council for implementing acts, to update EU law or secure uniform implementation. Implementing acts normally involve a committee representing every EU country and public feedback on draft texts. Delegated acts cannot change essential elements of a law; Parliament and Council may revoke the delegation or object, after public feedback and expert consultation.

This measure is part of the Commission communication A Simpler, Clearer and Better Enforced EU Rulebook, adopted on 28 April 2026, in the section on future-proof and adaptive regulation. The Commission says EU and national rules must leave room to adapt to rapid technological and geopolitical change, and that it will ensure rules are re-examined and updated where necessary. It says it will use sunset clauses where appropriate so that laws lapse on a specified future date. Used together with well-timed monitoring and evaluation clauses, the Commission says, sunset clauses can help prevent the unnecessary proliferation of rules and reporting requirements and ensure that laws that are no longer relevant do not linger on the statute books. It adds that the language used for sunset, monitoring and evaluation clauses will be standardised and harmonised. The communication gives no implementation date for this measure.