Today, I would like to share two important elements regarding the delivery of our ambitious simplification agenda.
First, looking back by presenting the main findings of the first Annual Overview Report on Simplification, Implementation and Enforcement.
And secondly, looking ahead, by outlining the strong simplification dimension of the 2026 Work Programme, which Maros has just presented.
But first, please allow me to very briefly place our simplification agenda in a broader context.
Improving Europe's competitiveness is the European Commission's overarching and urgent priority.
Simplification is a key component of this effort.
The simplification of EU rules, and their better implementation, is essential to make doing business easier and faster in Europe.
Concretely, the aim is to ensure that our businesses spend less time and energy on paperwork and more on innovation, investment, and growth.
By allowing our businesses to focus on doing what they do best, we can help make Europe more competitive, secure our prosperity and achieve our broader policy objectives.
So, where are we in terms of delivery?
The Overview Report summarises the Commission's progress in the first seven months on the simplification, implementation, and enforcement of EU rules and regulations.
Overall, the report shows remarkable progress in delivering on our agenda on all three.
Firstly, on simplification.
Since the beginning of the year, the Commission has presented six simplification omnibus proposals, in areas such as sustainability reporting, sustainability due diligence, taxonomy, investment rules, agriculture, defence, on small mid-caps and more.
Our proposals will have real, tangible and positive impacts on businesses across Europe.
To give you just some examples:
For farmers, for example, we are moving towards a one on-farm inspection per year, making environmental rules easier to understand and comply with, and facilitating access to financial support, especially for young farmers.
For SMEs, we are making rules more proportionate so that, during their scale-up phase, they are no longer suddenly confronted with the same compliance obligations as very large companies.
For Europe's defence industry, we are making rules on permitting, procurement and licencing simpler to help enhance our security.
We estimate the annual administrative savings stemming from the omnibus proposals and other simplification initiatives already presented to be over €8.6 billion.
This represents around one-fifth of the overall target of €37.5 billion in annual administrative cost savings which we want to achieve by the end of this Commission's mandate.
So, we have already made a strong start this year, but of course there remains a lot of work ahead of us.
To that end, we intend to present further omnibus proposals before the end of the year, including the Digital Package, an Environmental Omnibus, an Automotive Omnibus, Food and Feed Safety, and Medical Devices initiatives.
Secondly, on implementation.
The report shows that the Commission has been listening to those who are actually navigating our rules and regulations in designing our proposals.
Our simplification strategy mandates Implementation Dialogues and Reality Checks with stakeholders and practitioners to ensure that we are responding to their concerns.
The Commission has by now held more than 30 implementation dialogues.
This means that Members of the College have engaged with over 550 diverse stakeholders – including industry representatives, SMEs, entrepreneurs, social partners, central, regional and local authorities, and civil society.
So, we are following a bottom-up approach.
Our stakeholders and practitioners know where the problems actually are.
They are best-placed to provide useful insights for the Commission to tackle the bottlenecks, duplications and redundancies present in EU rules and regulations.
Then a word on enforcement.
The report shows how the Commission is enforcing EU law in a more cooperative, determined and transparent manner.
It highlights:
- the increased use of pre-infringement dialogues to find swifter solutions;
- the launch of 373 infringement cases, mainly for incomplete or incorrect transposition of directives, and;
- an overall stock of about 1,500 ongoing cases, coupled with 45 court referrals.
The information in the report is complemented by a revamped Europa webpage.
Now moving to what 2026 holds for our simplification agenda.
The message from the Commission Work Programme for 2026 is very clear.
We intend to keep up the momentum.
More than half of next year's work programme initiatives focuses on making EU law simpler, clearer and easier to implement.
This means that they will deliver net cost savings to get us closer and closer to the overall €37.5 billion target for annual administrative cost savings.
The Commission will present further omnibuses and other initiatives to simplify rules across key sectors.
This includes in areas like energy product legislation, taxation, competitiveness and innovation, and we will put forward proposals to reduce burdens for citizens.
The culture change that we have launched across the Commission – placing a greater focus on simplification and competitiveness – will also continue.
All Commissioners and Commission services will engage in implementation dialogues and reality checks with practitioners, to go beyond abstract discussions and focus on how concrete problems can be addressed directly and swiftly.
We will continue screening EU laws and implementing rules to see if they are necessary to reach policy objectives and do not add accumulated and undue burdens.
Finally, I would like to stress that simplification is a joint effort.
So, the Commission will continue to work closely with the co-legislators to ensure that these proposals are adopted swiftly and that all of our proposals realise their full potential to make a real, impactful change on the ground.
