President Boland, Honourable Members of the European Economic and Social Committee.
Thank you for the opportunity to join you today to discuss the European Commission's Communication on 'A Simpler, Clearer and Better Enforced EU Rulebook'.
When I last appeared before this plenary in March 2025, the European Commission had just begun implementing our simplification agenda.
I am pleased to report that, since then, we have made considerable progress.
We have now tabled twelve major Omnibus simplification proposals, as well as other simplification initiatives, across a broad range of policy areas.
These proposals have the potential to save at least €17 billion in administrative costs yearly for European businesses and national administrations.
Our businesses can redirect those savings away from compliance and towards investment, innovation, and expansion, the activities that create high-quality jobs, make us more competitive, and more prosperous.
Our simplification efforts will continue throughout the entire mandate.
President von der Leyen doubled down on this commitment in last week's State of the Union address, and in the accompanying letter of intent.
The letter sets out plans to deliver simplification proposals in the banking, housing and transport sectors in 2027, as well as a proposal to accelerate permitting.
We are counting on our co-legislators to act with ambition and urgency when considering all of the proposals now on the table.
As well as for those that are still to come.
That is the only way we can turn an ambitious agenda into the real, tangible results for our citizens and businesses.
But our simplification agenda is not all about looking back.
We have also changed how we will approach lawmaking and regulation in future.
And that is what I am here today to set out.
The Communication the European Commission presented in April marks a new level of ambition for the quality of law-making in Europe.
It aims to modernise how EU laws are designed, implemented and enforced, while ensuring they are clear, agile, fit for purpose and supported by solid evidence.
Our path towards a simpler, clearer and better enforced EU rulebook centres on five main pillars of action.
Firstly, we are embracing 'simplicity by design'.
This means designing proposals that are subject to regulatory discipline. In other words, we only act where EU-level action is necessary, applying the principles of subsidiary and proportionality rigorously.
It also means designing proposals that are leaner, more accessible, easy to implement and that can be properly enforced.
We want to ensure that new legislative proposals avoid regulatory complexity and fragmentation.
We also want to deepen the Single Market.
The strategy, therefore, foresees a more systematic use of regulations and full harmonisation where appropriate.
Simplicity by Design also means ensuring that transposition and implementation timelines are more realistic, and that we better factor-in the 'think small first' principle.
Secondly, we are strengthening the EU's better regulation system, which is already now an international benchmark.
We are enhancing transparency, stakeholder engagement and efficiency.
A broader range of legislative initiatives are being accompanied by more proportionate and more focused impact assessments, including those deemed urgent.
We are making our consultation system smarter and more flexible, taking better account of holiday periods, and avoiding over-consultation, while still seeking diverse views and inputs.
Simplification efforts will be supported by a new high-level stakeholder group, the Simplification Platform.
This platform will include representatives from various sectors, including civil society and small companies.
At the same time, better regulation principles should not only apply to the Commission.
We are calling on the Parliament and Council to assess their substantial legislative amendments, based on a simple methodology to analyse their main impacts.
Thirdly, we launched a bold new Action Plan to bring order into the existing, and large, stock of EU legislation.
Under the Action Plan on Regulatory Deep Cleaning, the Commission is tackling fragmented rules, inconsistent and overlapping provisions, and reducing complexity across 12 key areas.
One first result flowing from this Action Plan is the Public Procurement Act, proposed earlier this month.
It reduces the number of procurement procedures to three, down from five. And it consolidates the three existing directives and other provisions spread across sector-specific legislation into one single regulation.
These changes will create a more coherent and predictable framework, reducing complexity and administrative burden.
Fourthly, we are tackling the issue of regulatory gold-plating.
This is where Member States add stricter or wider rules than required by EU law, thereby creating barriers, increasing costs, and fragmenting the Single Market.
President von der Leyen addressed this in last week's State of the Union Address.
Simplification cannot only be a one-way street.
Member States must also play their part.
That's why we need to agree on a 'Pact Against Gold Plating'.
Earlier this month, I was in Riga to discuss gold-plating in the Member State the Rapporteur and I know best.
I saw firsthand the deep efforts being taken to tackle gold-plating.
It is clear that the Commission can and must play a greater role in supporting these efforts.
The Commission is working on a toolkit to assist Member States in this endeavour, including the digital tools necessary to identify regulatory overlaps.
And we intend to carry out pilot projects to identify gold-plating in key areas for the Single Market.
We will also act to step up our enforcement where we identify instances of unlawful gold-plating.
Fifth and finally, we are committed to faster and more robust enforcement of EU law.
Even the best rules fail to achieve their intended impact when implementation is fragmented, delayed, or inconsistent across Member States.
Credible and efficient enforcement is the backstop needed to achieve timely compliance with EU rules should support measures prove unsuccessful.
The Communication sets out a revamped enforcement approach, based on faster procedures, more automaticity, higher dissuasive penalties and a focus on reducing long-standing cases across all areas of EU law.
In addition, we have identified 11 focus areas for enforcement in relation to the Single Market.
Resolving identified issues will remove barriers to the free movement of goods and services, and the freedom of establishment.
We will report on progress across all of these elements in our annual overview report on 20 October.
This overview report will complement the individual ones from each Member of the College of Commissioners, which will be published soon.
Honourable Members, to conclude, the EESC's mission to help ensure that EU policies and legislation respond to the real economic, social and civic conditions on the ground is very much in line with our focus on simplification and better regulation.
Working together on this agenda will be crucial to achieving what I believe to be our shared objective of securing Europe's long-term welfare, prosperity and security.
And the opinion adopted today is a good example of that positive engagement in practice.
Another practical example of how to channel your contribution to this agenda is through the new Simplification Platform.
I will conclude by thanking you for your feedback on this crucial agenda for our competitiveness and future prosperity.
I look forward to hearing your views in today's debate.
