Democracy , EU – Baltic States, Legislation, Modern EU

The portal allows people to not only follow the entire policy and law-making process, but to express their views through an online feedback tool – and even contribute to new initiatives.

The portal, which was launched during summer 2016, helps to implement the Commission's Better Regulation Agenda and contributes to the broader efforts to increase transparency in the EU institutions.

Commission first vice-president, Frans Timmermans said the new tool had opened the EU’s decision-making process for those dealing with the EU rules. He added that the portal would assist the stakeholders to give their views for the first time on delegated and implementing acts, before they are adopted by the Commission.

Commission’s better regulation agenda

Once it is fully developed, the new portal will allow people to track legislative initiatives both before they are adopted by the Commission and also to follow the life cycle of a legislative proposal, from the moment it is launched, through discussions in the Council and Parliament, until the final law is adopted, implemented in the member states and its impact is checked by means of evaluations.

At the early stages of a legislative proposal, the portal offers the possibility to track the law-making process, following the different phases from the annual Commission work programme, through the roadmaps, impact assessment report and expert groups. Further along the legislative process, the EUR-Lex website allows users to search through all EU law, including implementing laws and delegated acts.

If, for instance, citizens are interested in staying up to date on legislation on money market funds, they would just need to type it into the search criteria and will get all information on the proposal for a regulation on Money Market Funds.

A timeline offers a visual representation of each step of the procedure, with detailed information about each institution's decisions and how they were taken, the services and departments involved, the legal basis of the act etc.

In addition, the My EUR-Lex tool offers a personal space on EUR-Lex where people can save for instance legislative documents, save searches or create personalised RSS feeds.

Sharing citizens’ views

The portal also offers people the possibility of sharing their views on draft acts, which either amend or supplement existing laws or set the conditions for existing laws to be implemented in the same way across the EU (so called, “level-2 measures”). The feedback will be taken into account by the Commission when further developing the acts.

So, citizens can, for example, influence the direction of the school fruit, vegetables and milk scheme initiative or the rules on the application of fair use policy.

Once a draft act is open for feedback, people have four weeks to share their views. The same will be true in the area of financial regulation although not for certain level-2 measures where the three European Supervisory Authorities are responsible for submitting drafts to the Commission. In this case, stakeholders can only give their feedback directly on the website of the following Authorities: European Banking Authority, European Securities and Markets Authority, European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority.

http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/fisma/item-detail.cfm?item 

The need for better regulation

To achieve better results, the Commission is opening up policy and law-making and listening more to the people it affects. Better regulation relies on evidence and a transparent process, which involves citizens and stakeholders (for example, businesses, public administrations and researchers) throughout.

The Commission identifies areas for improvement to the existing body of EU legislation. And when proposing new policies and laws, the Commission is focusing on the things that really do need to be done by the EU, and makes sure they are done well.

Applying these principles will help the Commission to meet its objectives at minimum cost and administrative burden. It also responds to concerns raised by EU citizens.

Better regulation sets out to ensure:

• decision-making is open and transparent;
• citizens and stakeholders can contribute throughout the policy and law‑making process;
• EU actions are based on evidence and understanding of the impacts; and
• regulatory burdens on businesses, citizens or public administrations are kept to a minimum

http://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/better-regulation-why-and-how_en

Transparency in the EU

Citizens can expect the EU decision-making process to be as transparent and open as possible. The more open the process is, the easier it is to ensure balanced representation while avoiding undue pressure and illegitimate or privileged access to information or to decision-makers. Transparency is also a key part of encouraging European citizens to participate more actively in the democratic life of the EU.

The EU transparency register has been set up to answer core questions such as what interests are being pursued, by whom and with what budgets. The system is operated jointly by the European Parliament and the European Commission.

To make the process of European law-making more open, the Transparency Register has been set up to provide information on what interests are being pursued, by whom and with what budgets. The register, which has been up and running since 2011, lists organisations and individuals hoping to influence European law-making.

Source: http://ec.europa.eu/transparencyregister/public/homePage.do?locale=en#en

As to the end of September 2016, there were about 10 thousand registrants in register (precisely, 9.957). They can be summed-up in the following groups:

- the biggest group is in-house lobbyists & trade/business/professional associations with 5.081 registrants; the list includes: companies & groups – 1.858; trade/business associations -2.234; trade unions & professional associations - 686; and other organisations – 303.  

- second in numbers are non-government organisations including platforms & networks – 2.522.

- third group consist of professional consultancies (683), law firms (117) and self-employed consultants (345), totally -1.145 registrants; 

- fourth group is think tanks & research institutions (490), academic institutions (224), totally – 714 registrants;

- there are also 450 registrants representing local, regional & municipal authorities and other public & mixed entities; and    

- organisations representing churches & religious communities – 45 registrants;