Brussels – The watchword is simplification, to ensure that EU regulations place less of a burden on Member States, including Italy. This is the message that the Minister for Institutional Reforms and Regulatory Simplification, Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati, is bringing to Brussels today (21 September) to launch the Alliance for the Reduction of the Bureaucratic Burden. ” Today’s meeting” recognises the “importance on the political agenda of reducing red tape,” including on the part of the “European Commission,” Casellati commented on the sidelines. The Alliance is a new informal network aimed at strengthening cooperation between Member States on simplifying and improving regulation.
The meeting was attended by representatives from Austria, Belgium, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Sweden, together with the European Commissioner for Economic Affairs, Valdis Dombrovskis. During the meeting, a joint declaration was signed setting out common principles for future cooperation.
On the sidelines of the event, which took place at the Austrian Representation to the European Union, the minister explained that “talking about reforms and regulatory simplification” means “to eliminate all regulatory overlaps, and to remove or reduce the decision times,” as well as removing “for small and medium-sized enterprises, all those permit requirements” that may promote “Italy’s development ‘at no cost’.”
According to the minister, today “the European level still carries weight” due to the numerous regulations that must be complied with. If action is taken when the regulations “have already all been completed” rather than “upstream,” there is a risk of “not affecting the burden of bureaucracy,” she emphasised. The aim, therefore, is to avoid “overly detailed arrangements,” when in fact “one should confine oneself solely to principles that can then be better adapted to the needs” of the “27 countries that face different situations regarding political, economic and social nature.” So the initiative aims to “compare best practices” in order to “decide together on what tomorrow’s legislation will look like,” she explained.
Together with Austria, Italy is also said to be working on an informal document which is due to be tabled at the EU General Affairs Council tomorrow (22 September). This is a “non-paper”, that is, an informal document calling on Brussels not to propose any new legislation for a year. In this regard, Casellati reiterated that “the moratorium proposed by 12 countries is the right thing to do,” as it allows Italy to focus “on our own needs, which are many” within “a complicated international context rather than simply transposing directives at this stage” which perhaps “require a more rigorous review,” she concluded.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
