Publications

Agencies are frequently required to analyze the impact of their decisions, particularly in the context of regulatory policy. Advocates of analysis have championed the transparency benefit of these requirements. But there has been very little attention paid to the effectiveness of analysis in spurring useful participation in practice. This article examines how analysis can hinder and motivate public participation. Interviews were conducted with 48 analysts (including economists, risk assessors, and environmental impact assessors). In addition I conducted a case study on a unique method for using analysis in partnership with participation, the use of panels of small business owners to evaluate a regulatory proposal by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). I find that participation in agency decisions as a result of traditional analytical requirements has been very uneven. Examples of success exist but so do cases where participation may be deterred by the density and complexity of analysis as well as cases of massive letter-writing campaigns ignored by decision-makers. I recommend a move toward simpler and earlier analysis, and the use of panels (such as described in the case study) to better take advantage of the potential synergy between analysis and participation.

1. La normativa di riferimento
2. Alcuni dati statistici
2.1. Il numero e i casi in cui l'AIR è stata effettuata
2.2. Il numero e i casi di esclusione e di esenzione dall'AIR.
2.3. Il contenuto dell'AIR
2.4. I numeri delle VIR.............
3. Le criticità del sistema
4. L'iter di adozione del nuovo regolamento.
5. I punti principali della nuova disciplina....
6. La Guida all'analisi e alla verifica dell'impatto della regolamentazione.

1 Increasing interest in the application of behavioural insights 4
2 What are behavioural insights? 8
3 Showcase studies from all ministries: 14 behavioural projects 11
• Clear car pricing (ACM) 14
• Spontaneous presentation of ID when young people buy alcohol
(General Affairs & Health, Welfare and Sport) 16
• Faster response to a request for information
(Tax and Customs Administration) 18
• Booking your own business trip on time (Foreign Affairs) 20
• Less skewed living (Interior & Kingdom Relations) 22
• Better protection against roadside bombs (Defence) 24
• Greater awareness in student loan behaviour
(DUO & Education, Culture and Science) 26
• Energy-saving in the private sector (Economic Affairs and Climate Policy/
Agriculture, Nature and Food Policy & RVO) 28
• Credit warning: beware! (Finance & AFM) 30
• Optimising Use (Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management) 32
• Fewer incidents in asylum centres (Justice and Security) 34
• Timely notification of changes in the living and housing situation for
the National Survivor Benefit Act (Social Affairs and Employment) 36
• More response to the Work Profiler jobseeker questionnaire (UWV) 38
• More exercise by overweight people (Health, Welfare and Sport) 40
4 Success factors: 5 lessons from central government 42
5 Further reading

The White Paper on the Future of Europe has stimulated a deep
process of reflection about the Europe we need. This will culminate
in the Leaders’ summit in Sibiu in May 2019. The work of this Task
Force should be seen as part of this broader discussion and I hope
our report and its recommendations will find their place in the
ongoing reflections.
The Treaties do not give the EU’s institutions a blank cheque to do
what they want. Subsidiarity and proportionality are the practical
tools to ensure that the Union does not do what the Member
States or regional and local authorities can better do themselves
and to focus the Union’s actions on where it can really add value.
We need both principles and we need to apply them actively,
collectively and in the same spirit if they are to work as our citizens
expect them to do.
Today, we have 41 national Parliament chambers, 74 regional
legislative assemblies, around 280 regions, and 80 000 local
authorities. They are all engaged directly in applying the Union’s
policies on the ground. Their concerns and practical experience
should be heard more systematically if we want policies that work
Foreword from the Chair of the Task Force
while respecting the character and identity of our nations, regions
and localities. I hope that providing a more meaningful say in how
things are done will also allow our national Parliaments and local
and regional authorities to be more effective ambassadors and
advocates of the European Union.
Finally, this report – a collective effort by the European Committee
of the Regions, members of the national Parliaments, and the
European Commission – is not an end in itself. It is the start of a
process to open up our procedures more to the local and regional
level and to make the Union’s legislation work better for its
citizens. While this report is addressed to President Juncker, the
European Parliament, Council, European Committee of the Regions,
European Economic and Social Committee, the national Parliaments,
regional Parliaments, and local and regional authorities all have a
responsibility to consider in responding to the Task Force’s report.
Frans Timmermans, Chairman of the Task Force on Subsidiarity,
Proportionality and “Doing Less More Efficiently”
Brussels, 10 July 2018.

How regulations are implemented and enforced, and how compliance is ensured and promoted, are critical determinants of whether a regulatory system is working as intended. Inspections are one of the most important ways to enforce regulations and to ensure regulatory compliance. Based on the 2014 OECD Best Practice Principles for Regulatory Enforcement and Inspection, this Toolkit offers government officials, regulators, stakeholders and experts a simple tool for assessing the inspection and enforcement system in a given jurisdiction, institution or structure. Its checklist of 12 criteria can be used to identify strengths and weaknesses, gauge actual performance, and pinpoint areas for improvement.

Laws and regulations govern the everyday life of businesses and citizens, and are important tools of public policy. Regulating has never been easy, but the overwhelming pace of technological change and unprecedented interconnectedness of economies has made it a daunting task. The 2018 Regulatory Policy Outlook, the second in the series, maps country efforts to improve regulatory quality in line with the 2012 OECD Recommendation on Regulatory Policy and Governance, and shares good regulatory practices. It provides unique insights into the organisation and institutional settings in countries for designing, enforcing and revising regulations. It also highlights areas of the regulatory cycle that receive too little attention from policy makers. Finally, it identifies areas where countries can invest to improve the quality of laws and regulations and presents innovative approaches to better regulation.

In recent years, sunset clauses have mostly been associated with emergency legislation introduced in the wake of terrorist attacks. However, as this book demonstrates, they have a long history and a substantial constitutional impact on the separation of powers and the rule of law. In addition, the constitutional value of such clauses is examined from certain neglected normative aspects pertaining to concepts such as deliberative and consensus democracy, parliamentary sovereignty and constitutional dialogue.
The work is an amalgam of three perspectives: the historical, the positive and the normative. All three are intertwined and each subsequent part builds upon the findings of the previous one. The historical perspective investigates the historical development of sunset clauses since the first Parliaments in England. The positive perspective examines the legal effect and the contemporary utility of sunset clauses. Finally, the normative perspective analyses their interaction with several models of separation of powers, and their influence on the dialogue between various institutions as it values their impact on the rule of law, formal and substantive.
The detailed examination of this topical subject will be a valuable resource for academics, researchers and policy makers.

This Article, which takes into account developments up until summer 2017, evaluates the early days of regulatory engagement with blockchain technology. My analysis unfolds in three parts. First, I provide a cursory overview of the technology itself to highlight considerable uncertainties concerning its future. Regulators asked to engage with distributed ledgers are thus compelled to regulate the unknown. Second, I will introduce a typology of regulatory strategies adopted to date and highlight their respective advantages and shortcomings. Third, I will outline a number of guiding principles regulators should follow in respect of blockchain technology. I will make the argument that despite the technology's uncertain future, early regulatory engagement is warranted as a young technology is a malleable technology. As technology develops, law has to adapt. As a consequence, I put forward a number of regulatory techniques, including a process of polycentric co-regulation that relies on the regulatory potential of (blockchain) software and the adoption of a so-called “28th regime” at the EU level which may help navigate the uncertainties of blockchain development and regulation.

Prior to the global financial crisis, financial innovation was viewed very positively, resulting in a laissez-faire, deregulatory approach to financial regulation. Since the crisis the regulatory pendulum has swung to the other extreme. Post-crisis regulation, plus rapid technological change, have spurred the development of financial technology (FinTech). FinTech firms and data-driven financial service providers profoundly challenge the current regulatory paradigm. Financial regulators increasingly seek to balance the traditional regulatory objectives of financial stability and consumer protection with promoting growth and innovation. The resulting regulatory innovations include RegTech, regulatory sandboxes, and special charters. This Article analyzes possible new regulatory approaches, ranging from doing nothing (which spans being permissive to highly restrictive, depending on context), cautious permissiveness (on a case-by-case basis, or through special charters), structured experimentalism (such as sandboxes or piloting), and development of specific new regulatory frameworks. Building on this framework, we argue for a new regulatory approach, which incorporates these rebalanced objectives, and which we term ‘smart regulation.’ Our new automated and proportionate regime builds on shared principles from a range of jurisdictions and supports innovation in financial markets. The fragmentation of market participants and the increased use of technology requires regulators to adopt a sequential reform process, starting with digitization, before building digitally-smart regulation. This Article provides a roadmap for this process.

This report summarises the results of the study ‘Assessing the impacts of EU regulatory barriers on innovation’. To obtain the necessary data, a European-wide survey was conducted in 2016. This study focused on four sectors: energy, food, health and water. Each of these four sectors addressed the innovation system and regulatory framework, alongside questions on challenges, innovation drivers and barriers. While regulatory barriers to innovation were identified for the whole economy as well as within the four sectoral studies, the overall impact of regulation on innovation is predominantly neutral to positive. The main regulatory barrier identified concerns ‘conflicting regulation’ rather than a single type of regulation. The study also found that compliance with regulation creates innovation, with a net gain of EUR 3-6 billion per year in additional innovation investments and in terms of employment a net gain of 120 000 additional jobs. Removing existing regulatory barriers could release up to EUR 4-8 billion on general innovation investment per year.

This article presents the findings of an extensive multi‐method empirical study that explored the relationship between temporary legislation, better regulation, and experimentalist governance. Temporary (or “sunset”) legislation – statutory provisions enacted for a limited time and set to expire unless their validity is extended – is often hailed as a key tool for promoting experimental and better regulation. Despite the importance of temporary legislation and the burgeoning theoretical scholarship on the subject, there is still a dearth of empirical studies about how temporary legislation is used in practice. The lack of empirical evidence creates a lacuna in at least three areas of theoretical scholarship, concerning temporary legislation, better regulation, and experimentalist governance. This paper is a first step to fill this gap.