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Which Results? Better Regulation and Institutional Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Kai Wegrich
Kai Wegrich*
Affiliation:
Hertie School of Governance
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Extract

How can one not applaud the renewed better regulation agenda launched by the First Vice President Timmermans? Finally this fuzzy reform field is in the hands of a strong executive politician with the authority to make substantial progress on an agenda that always appeared good on paper, but somehow did not deliver against the expectations it defined for itself. ‘Better regulation for better results’ not only promises tangible results, but it combines this with the ambition of ‘changing how we work at the European level’. This ambition should provide us – as citizens, stakeholders and scholars – with an opportunity to essentially present a scorecard concerning these results in the near future. And, indeed, experts and other stakeholders in the better regulation game do welcome the initiative.

My view on this agenda is that the promise of ‘better results’ will be hard to deliver, whereas the ambition of ‘changing how we work’ is more likely to materialize in one way or another.

Type
Special Issue on the Better Regulation Package
Information
European Journal of Risk Regulation , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , September 2015 , pp. 369 - 371
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015

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References

1 See for example the German ‘Normenkontrollrat’ in his press release from 16 May 2015, http://www.normenkontrollrat.bund.de/Webs/NKR/Content/DE/Download/2015-05-19_pm_better_regulation.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=3 (retrieved 17 June 2015).

2 European Commission ‘Better regulation for better results – An EU agenda’, Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, COM (2015) 215 final, Strasbourg, 19.5.2015.

3 Cf. Lodge, Martin and Wegrich, Kai ‘Managing Regulation: Regulatory Analysis, Politics and Policy’ (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), chapter 10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Roberts, Alasdair ‘The Logic of Discipline’ (Oxford University Press, 2010).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 A systematic empirical investigation of the extent of such gaming of better regulation strategies is still not available. But anecdotic evidence suggests that such strategies are used, and the ‘straw man’ strategy might actually be induced by signals from the higher echelons of the hierarchy.

6 Baldwin, Robert, ‘Better Regulation: the search and the struggle’, Baldwin, Robert, Cave, Martin and Lodge, Martin (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Regulation (Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 259 et seqq.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Radaelli, Claudio M. and Meuwese, Anne CM, ‘Hard questions, hard solutions: proceduralisation through impact assessment in the EU‘,33 West European Politics (2010), pp. 136 et sqq., at p. 142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Baumgartner, Frank R. and Jones, Bryan D. ‘Agendas and instability in American politics’ (University of Chicago Press, 2010).Google Scholar

9 European Commission ‘Proposal for an Interinstitutional Agreement on Better Regulation’, Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council, COM(2015) 216 (final), Strasbourg, 19.05.2015.

10 Cf. for example Fabbrini, Sergio, Which European Union?, (Cambridge University Press, 2015).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Bauer, Michael W., Michael, W. and Becker, Stefan, ‘The Unexpected Winner of the Crisis: The European Commission's Strengthened Role in Economic Governance’, 36 Journal of European Integration (2014), pp. 213 et sgg.CrossRefGoogle Scholar