Assessing Regulatory Compliance Costs in the EC

Abstract

The assessment of UK business compliance costs in the European Community (EC) is relevant in two ways to the themes of this book. First, a significant proportion of regulations introduced in the UK are EC requirements, implying that there is a role for Compliance Cost Assessment (CCA) in alerting negotiators to potentially burdensome proposals. An Efficiency Scrutiny Report produced in 1993 by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) estimated that around one-third of existing UK law arises from obligations to implement EC law and that in future 70 per cent of business law will come from Brussels (House of Commons, 1995, p.24), so UK negotiators need to be aware of these implications. In 1994 the UK Deregulation Unit (DA) produced a guide specifically promoting such a role for CCA in ‘securing sensible legislation in Europe’ (DTI, 1994c, p.1). Second, the European Commission¹ has its own system of regulatory impact assessment, known as the fiche d’impact which, like the CCA, focuses on the costs to business of regulatory proposals. Insofar as the fiche constitutes part of the regulatory policy process at the EC level, it may influence legislative outcomes in the UK.