Better Regulation

The 'Commission Supérieure de Codification ('High Commission on Codification') is a body that was created with the aim of providing support for the process of codifying the texts of positive law. Analysis of both its place in France's institutional architecture and its working methods highlights certain particularities in the body's functioning and raises questions as to its degree of proximity to the Law Commissions .

In a comparative perspective the article analyzes some case-studies (USA, UK and Germany)
of the use of sunset rules (or clause). This analysis is aimed at identifying some possible
replicable solutions in the Italian legal system (at state and regional levels) of the introduction
of these clauses, qualifies both as a tool to achieve better regulation goals, and to contribute to
the production of “flexible” regulations.

L’articolo analizza in prospettiva comparata alcune esperienze (USA, Regno Unito e
Germania) di utilizzo delle sunset rules, ovvero delle clausole di autoabrogazione espressa
contenute in alcune tipologie di provvedimenti normativi. L’analisi comparata è finalizzata ad
individuare alcune possibili soluzioni replicabili nel nostro ordinamento (sia a livello statale
sia regionale) di introduzione di questo istituto, qualificabile sia come strumento per realizzare
la qualità della regolazione, sia per contribuire alla produzione di una regolazione “flessibile”.

Français : https://web.lexisnexis.fr/fb/Supplement_JCPG_01.2021/80/
English : https://web.lexisnexis.fr/fb/Supplement_JCPG_01.2021/86/
Deutsch : https://web.lexisnexis.fr/fb/Supplement_JCPG_01.2021/90

Les limites des remèdes textuels et jurisprudentiels à la dégradation de la qualité du droit conduisent à prôner un changement d’ordre culturel. Il convient alors de modifier non seulement les pratiques, en identifiant et généralisant les bonnes pratiques, mais également les représentations, les mentalités. La qualité du droit doit devenir une éthique partagée par les citoyens et les pouvoirs publics afin de faire de cette question une priorité. L’amélioration de la qualité du droit gagnerait notamment au développement d’une véritable politique juridique.
English translation by Robert Fletcher : The limits of legislative and jurisprudential solutions to the deteriorating quality of the law are such that we must advocate for cultural change. We must alter not only practices, by identifying best practices and rolling them out across the board, but also perceptions, representations and mindsets. If the quality of the law is to become a priority, then citizens and public authorities must all recognise its importance. In particular, the quality of the law would benefit from the development of a real legal policy.
Deutsche übersetzung von Alexander Konzelmann : Die Grenzen der textlichen und rechtswissenschaftlichen Mittel gegen die Verschlechterung der Qualität des Rechts veranlassen uns, für eine Änderung der Rechtskultur im Rahmen der Normsetzung einzutreten. Es ist notwendig, nicht nur die Praktiken zu ändern, indem „best practice“-Beispiele identifiziert und verallgemeinert werden, sondern auch Zuständigkeiten und geistige Haltungen. Die Qualität des Rechts muss zu einer gemeinsamen Handlungsmaxime werden, die von Bürgern und Behörden geteilt wird, um diesem Thema zu Priorität zu verhelfen. Die Verbesserung der Qualität des Rechts würde vor allem von der Entwicklung einer echten Rechtspolitik profitieren.

Es un estudio elaborado por el Departamento de Estudios Legales de FUSADES que reúne distintos análisis de leyes y políticas públicas para mejorar aspectos específicos relacionados con el clima de negocios.

El documento fue elaborado junto con el resto del equipo del Área Comercial e Internacional, y desde la perspectiva legal e institucional, se analizan los principales elementos que inciden en el clima de inversión en El Salvador, y se proponen acciones prácticas y sistémicas en cada ámbito abordado, que serán valiosos insumos para estrategias nacionales, tales como el Plan de Gobierno 2014-2019, el Asocio para el Crecimiento, el convenio Fomilenio II y el Plan de la Alianza para la Prosperidad del Triángulo Norte.

L'esigenza di semplificare l'attività amministrativa deriva essenzialmente da due circostanze, oggi di grande importanza nel dibattito politico-ideologico e costituite dalla necessità di rispettare i sempre più stretti vincoli di bilancio (sono purtroppo note a tutti le attuali ristrettezze della finanza pubblica) e dalla necessità di dare vita ad una pubblica amministrazione in linea (soprattutto per quello che riguarda i tempi di definizione dei procedimenti amministrativi) con le burocrazie degli altri Stati Europei.
Semplificare l'attività amministrativa significa quindi una pubblica amministrazione che costi meno alla collettività, sia in termini di stanziamenti di bilancio che in termini di costi complessivi (comprensivi delle ore-lavoro che l'acquisizione di inutili certificati o le code davanti agli uffici sottraggono ad ogni cittadino) e soprattutto che lavori meglio.
In termini più generali, la semplificazione amministrativa costituisce poi uno dei mezzi per raggiungere due dei principi generali dell'attività amministrativa individuati dall'art. 1 della l. 241/90 e costituiti dall'economicità (intesa come minor dispendio possibile di risorse economiche) e dall'efficacia (intesa come rapporto tra il risultato che ci si prefiggeva di raggiungere ed il risultato effettivamente raggiunto dall'azione amministrativa); semplificare è quindi il mezzo migliore per ottenere una pubblica amministrazione che consumi minori risorse e che raggiunga gli obiettivi prefissi.

This report presents the results of an ex-post impact assessment study undertaken for six countries
(four Member States – France, the Netherlands1, Sweden and the United Kingdom – and two EFTA
countries – Iceland and Norway) in order to measure the institutional impacts at the state, regional,
and local levels of the 1999/31/EC Landfill Directive and the 2004/18/EC Public Procurement
Directive. The context of "Good Governance" and "Better Regulation" principles and instruments
have furnished the general framework; the ultimate goal being to ensure that the institutional
impacts of the EU legislation is properly assessed and understood. The study puts forward a
number of questions regarding the existing mechanisms. It aims to identify gaps and opportunities
for improvements.

El presente trabajo tiene por objeto estudiar la incidencia de la Ley 39/2015, de 1 de octubre, del Procedimiento Administrativo Común de las Administraciones Públicas, en el procedimiento de elaboración de ordenanzas y reglamentos locales, abordando asimismo los límites sustantivos y formales a que debe ajustarse el ejercicio de dicha potestad reglamentaria, con especial atención a la jurisprudencia rectora en la materia.

This paper aims to study the incidence of Law 39/2015, of October 1, the Common Administrative Procedure Public Administration in the process of drafting local ordinances and regulations, including by addressing the substantive and formal limits to adjustments to the exercise of that regulatory power, with special attention to the leading case law.

O novo marco legal do saneamento básico (Lei 14.026/2020) inseriu a Agência Nacional deÁguas e Saneamento Básico (ANA) como entidade de governança regulatória nacional dosaneamento básico, como forma de aprimorar o ambiente regulatório. Assim, o artigoinicialmente avalia brevemente o movimento de melhoria regulatória (better regulation), bemcomo sua influência no Brasil, tendo como marcos o Programa de Fortalecimento daCapacidade Institucional para Gestão em Regulação (PRO-REG) e, posteriormente, doPrograma de Desenvolvimento do Setor Água (Interáguas). Em seguida, procura fazer umaanálise das perspectivas da atuação da ANA para melhorar a regulação do saneamento básico.

This article historically considers major public inquiries as an institution of the British regulatory state (Moran 2003), using recent data from parliamentary committees. Major inquiries draw upon judicial independence to restore political authority. Despite their formally ‘public’ character major inquiries were more confined to matters internal to the state prior to the 1980s, reflecting the insularity of ‘club rule’ and invisibility of the actual ‘public’. Inquiries began to assume their modern form in the 1960s, but it was in the context of the need for new institutions that arose with the collapse of ‘club rule’ that inquiries have taken on new significance. Increased resort to them reflects not simply more events necessitating such a response, but a greater need for a mechanism with both a public orientation and formal independence. The paper suggests that inquiries may have become overburdened instruments, particularly in relation to an expectation to effectively eliminate risk.

This paper analyzes in a critical way the principles and rules used by the recent spanish law of administrative procedure to reinforce better regulation. It concludes with some reflections about the limits and problems of meta-regulation, that is to say regulation dealing with regulation.

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) may or may not bear fruit in its current incarnation, but it certainly teaches us crucial lessons regarding the institutional dynamics of market integration beyond the state. I argue that the TTIP’s so called ‘regulatory cooperation’, in principle a mere mechanism for ‘discussion’ and ‘exchange’ between regulators, would have a profound impact on the regulatory culture across the Atlantic. I make this argument in three interrelated steps. First, building on insights from constitutional law and political science, I outline an analytical framework for the study of rule-making institutions beyond the state. Second, I analyze the TTIP through the lens of this framework, illustrating the mechanisms through which its model for regulatory cooperation could reform the regulatory culture in the EU. Third, I argue that this change in the EU regulatory culture would have been neither an accident, nor a result of a US-led hegemonic project. Instead, the TTIP’s regulatory cooperation is a part of the EU’s internal political struggle, intended ultimately to re-balance not only powers between the legislative and the executive in the EU, but also within the EU’s executive branch itself.

Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) is a relatively new tool that has been introduced into the legislative system of the CEE countries, namely Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia. In order to streamline its implementation all three countries have decided to conduct a pilot RIA in a very similar area – administrative burden on enterprises. Although the circumstances and rationale for preparing a pilot RIA differ from country to country, all three countries struggle with inadequate political support, institutional arrangements, and lack of clear methodologies. The paper aims to compare the formal arrangements that have introduced RIA into their national systems and experience with piloting RIA. It argues that the piloting of RIA was kidnapped by the agenda of administrative burden and business oriented RIA which served the substantive discussion rather than to the potential peadagogical or demonstrative effects that the pilot could have brought.

Over the past fifteen years, an interconnected set of regulatory reforms, known as Better Regulation, has been adopted across Europe, marking a significant shift in the way that European Union (EU) policies are developed. There has been little exploration of the origins of these reforms, which include mandatory ex ante impact assessment. Drawing on  documentary and interview data, this article discusses how and why large corporations, notably British American Tobacco (BAT), worked to influence and promote these reforms. Our analysis highlights (1) how policy entrepreneurs with sufficient resources (such as large corporations) can shape the membership and direction of advocacy coalitions; (2) the extent to which ‘‘think tanks’’ may be prepared to lobby on behalf of commercial clients; and (3) why regulated industries (including tobacco) may favor the use of ‘‘evidence-tools,’’ such as impact assessments, in policy making. We argue that a key aspect of BAT’s ability to shape regulatory reform involved the deliberate construction of a vaguely defined idea that could be strategically adapted to appeal to diverse constituencies. We discuss the theoretical implications of this finding for the Advocacy Coalition Framework, as well as the practical implications of the findings for efforts to promote transparency and public health in the EU.

ABSTRACT: Solidarity is a core value of European integration which is highly invoked at the political level as the ‘binder’ to fix the several crises the EU has faced. It has been as well put forward as a core pillar of the Pact on Migration and Asylum. Despite the narrative of the Commission stressing the novelty of the Pact, yet the Pact has been criticized, by scholars and practitioners alike, as being short-sighted on solidarity. The aim of this article is to contribute to the current debate on the Pact by demonstrating that by being modest on the implementation of the principle of solidarity, the Commission is also not fulfilling the principle of subsidiarity. The article proceeds by first unpacking the principle of subsidiarity, particularly its side of requiring a European added value of legislative proposals, which has been recently highlighted. It develops then an analysis on the meaning of the principle of solidarity, which should have a corrective dimension in the sense of fairly redistributing the effort between Member States. It emerges that, in today’s asylum policy, subsidiarity and solidarity are interlocked, so that requiring a “European added value” of the new rules calls for increasing the degree of solidarity. In the second part, the article analyses the Commission’s proposals on the screening, the new border procedures, the asylum management, and the return sponsorship mechanism, to show where the low degree of solidarity that they enshrine corresponds to a failure of the positive dimension of the subsidiarity test.

Desde hace años asistimos a un constante aumento del interés por la calidad de las normas, que se refleja tanto en el ámbito académico como en el político, con cada vez más cauces e iniciativas orientadas
a aportar datos y conocimientos empíricos o científicos que contribuyan a una toma de decisiones más informada y a unas normas mejores. Este interés no ha sido homogéneo ni en todas las ramas del ordenamiento
ni en todos los Estados. En el ámbito penal observamos cada vez una mayor atención académica a este tema, no siempre acompañada de su correspondiente interés institucional. El presente trabajo pretende atender a este asunto, centrándose en las medidas de mejora de la legislación adoptadas por la Unión Europea, particularmente en los últimos años y respecto al ámbito penal. Dichas medidas pueden
contribuir a mejorar la actuación de algunos legisladores, como el español, todavía poco avanzados en prácticas de buena regulación y racionalidad legislativa.

El presente trabajo estudia cómo los sistemas de participación electrónica han de formar parte inevitable del mecanismo para la mejora de la calidad normativa en la elaboración de reglamentos y otras disposiciones previsto por la reforma de 2015. Para ello, estudia las novedades que ha supuesto el nuevo Título VI de la ley 39/2015, que establece por primera vez un sistema completo y coherente de participación, desarrolla los elementos del mismo en que más juego han de poder dar los medios electrónicos de participación y se señalan algunas de sus carencias.

"This report is on the European Commission's "better regulation" programme. The Commission is promising that scrapping or revising a number of directives will save businesses around 40 billion euros by reducing the "administrative formalities" they impose. In Better Regulation: a critical assessment, Laurent Vogel (ETUI) and Eric Van den Abeele (University of Mons) reveal the agenda within the agenda.

In the first part of the report entitled "Making lies sound truthful", Laurent Vogel dissects the methods used by the audit firms and consultancies contracted by the Commission to do the study that came up with the figure of 40 billion euros in savings. "The method seems never to have been looked at by economics and statistics researchers to see if it stands up", finds the author. More alarmingly still, "there are also some instances of blatant figure-massaging to meet the sponsors' political agendas".

The author also criticizes the Commission's inordinate reliance on the work of a group of experts appointed to support the "Better Regulation" programme. Most of the group - known as the Stoiber Group after its chairman, the former conservative premier of Bavaria - are highly pro-deregulationist. The report points out that in addition to his job of advising the Commission, Mr Stoiber has since 11 November 2009, been Chairman of the Advisory Board of Deloitte, one of the firms involved in carrying out the study concerned.

The second part of the report is equally damning. "Better Regulation: a new religion trying to spread the word?" asks Eric Van den Abeele. The author sets the exercise within the ideological context of the early 1990s that spawned it, and gives a broad brush picture of its development to the present day. Staring out as a 'Better Lawmaking' agenda to improve the quality of drafting of legislation, the aim now seems to have shifted from improving directives to simply scrapping those suspected of doing most harm to business competitiveness."

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 in filling this gap.

Nudging is one of the avant-garde directions of legislation around the world. This study outlines the theoretical and practical advantages and disadvantages of nudges by drawing attention to the paradigmatic area of recent precautions and vaccinations against Covid-19. The starting point of the analysis is a minimal definition of ‘nudging’, according to which it is a deliberate intervention based on behavioral, psychological and empirical surveys devoted to chance the concrete context where people make decisions and act. The “legislator” as nudger intervenes on the premise that the individual’s decision-making process in relation to certain predetermined policy goals would otherwise not be satisfactory. By changing the specific decision-making context, the intervention aims to influence individual behavior in the direction desired by the nudger. A distinctive feature of nudges is that the desired behavior is not expressed directly or stated explicitly, but is sought indirectly and bypassing authoritative, coercive or otherwise binding means. In light of this idea, the current debate on whether vaccination should be mandatory or rather recommended will be examined, as will the world-shaking debate on precautionary measures to reduce risk of coronavirus infection. The analysis will show the extent to which nudges can increase preparedness and be a fruitful tool in the hands of “legislators” to promote a more participatory approach to legislation. As large-scale behavioral change is required and biases and uncertainties increase, the added value of nudges becomes more important. From a prescriptive perspective, the analysis aims to show why and to what extent “legislators” can take advantage of
nudges to avoid ineffective laws and align people behavior with public goals. In particular, the study will defend the idea that nudges, although criticised by both proponents and opponents of liberal paternalism, play an important role in the legislative framework of constitutional systems and can contribute to a better implementation of the ideal of the Rule of Law. Although nudging is sometimes dismissed as a trivial phenomenon, a far-sighted combination of nudges and regulatory laws is beneficial. It should be planned especially for exceptional situa tions where the same resilience of the legal system might fail.

This article explores non-stimulating regulatory environment that can effect economic activities. Specific focus is on the so-called administrative burdens as it has been established that administrative burden reduction is an internationally used policy with questionable outcomes. This is tested on a case study of Slovenian administrative burden reduction policy concluding that administrative burdens are mostly considered unnecessary but to some extent (34.5%) also necessary, however, as a subject of possible optimisation. The most burdensome is time spent in order to comply with regulation, following successiveness of the burdens (one following the other). Additionally, based on the case study policy, we can conclude that businesses are not well informed about government administrative burden reduction policies.

Regulatory reforms in Europe and the OECD in the last decade have focused on efforts to improve regulatory quality. As part of that development, political and administrative decision-makers have been encouraged to consider fiscal, socio-economic and other effects of proposed legislation when making policy choices. The Central and Eastern European EU member states adopted such regulatory impact analysis (RIA) mechanisms in the early 2000s but, so far, there has been little analysis of the implementation of RIAs conducted in these countries. This article compares, first, the manner in which RIA has been institutionalised in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia. Second, it explores how differences in institutionalisation have affected RIA performance. The paper argues that there are marked differences in the RIA quality across Central and Eastern Europe, notably as a consequence of differences in institutional and administrative contexts and capacities.

The scope of this guide is to provide the fundamental methodological and technical instructions to measure the regulatory quality performance of a country. The Regulatory Quality Index has already been implemented and presented in Greece for all laws enacted through the Greek parliament during 2018. This guide focuses on the methodological framework for the best practices on regulation and on the way the Regulatory Quality Index was implemented in the Greek case. It also presents a roadmap for other think tanks or organizations to adjust the Index to their own regulatory frameworks.

Dépassant le constat bien connu des maux de la loi (inflation, instabilité et complexification des règles de droit), les actes de ce colloque, qui réunissent des personnalités politiques, des hauts fonctionnaires et des juristes universitaires, entendent mettre en lumière la nécessité de changer de culture normative afin d'améliorer la qualité du droit.
Les actes identifient de nombreuses bonnes pratiques pouvant être généralisées. Ils suggèrent de faire de la qualité du droit une véritable politique publique.

Actes accessibles à l'adresse : http://www.tendancedroit.fr/supplement-jcpg-changer-de-culture-normative-ameliorer-la-qualite-du-droit-par-la-generalisation-des-bonnes-pratiques-18-janvier-2021/

Colloque visionnable à l'adresse : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdPspr8Q4tM

L’attività regolatoria delle autorità amministrative indipendenti coinvolge settori sempre più ampi dell’agire quotidiano; ma come viene resa effettiva? Con quali strumenti ne viene garantito il rispetto? E ancora, quale ruolo ricopre l’enforcement nel ciclo complessivo della better regulation? Attraverso un’approfondita analisi del disegno istituzionale dell’enforcement di sei autorità italiane (agcom, arera, agcm, consob, ivass e Banca d’Italia), l’autrice ne individua i principali modelli e indaga i fattori istituzionali che influiscono sulla loro diversificazione. Ne emerge un quadro variegato, nel quale l’appartenenza all’uno o all’altro modello deriva principalmente dagli ambienti istituzionali (nazionale e sovranazionale) in cui le autorità agiscono. Ma contano anche la cultura e le tradizioni amministrative stratificatesi nel tempo. Cruciali appaiono, a tale proposito, le sfide poste dalla nuova governance ue, che tende ad accrescere i poteri di enforcement direttamente esercitati dalle istituzioni sovranazionali, chiamando le autorità nazionali a un significativo sforzo di adattamento.
Il volume offre, inoltre, una prospettiva nuova allo studio dell’enforcement, considerandolo, all’interno del ciclo della better regulation, come una sottofase dell’implementazione, essenziale a garantire efficacia alle scelte di policy.

The recent book Consumer Theories of Harm is an important contribution to consumer policy. It is the first attempt to develop theories of harm for consumer law. This essay presents the main arguments of the book (Sections 1 and 2). There are four archetypal scenarios of harm that consumer law should consider: the scam, the lemon, the shock, and the subsidy. Section 3 critically engages with the normative foundations of the analysis. Section 4 proposes to consider the shock scenario, one of the four archetypal scenarios of harm proposed by the book as the benchmark against which assess the other three scenarios. Section 5 shows the importance of searching the theories of harm latent in legislation by showing that ancillary terms in standard terms and conditions are understood by the Unfair Contract Terms Directive as an instance of the scam scenario, not of the shock scenario as proposed by the authors. Finally, Section 6 proposes additional lines of inquiry stimulated by Consumer Theories of Harm.

Cite as: Borraz, O., Beaussier, A-L., Demeritt, D., Hermans, M., Huber, M., Paul, R., Rothstein, H., Wesseling, M. (2020) 'Why regulators assess risk differently: Regulatory style, business organisation, and the varied practice of risk-based food safety inspections across the EU'. Regulation and Governance. Abstract This article advances scholarship on comparative regulation by moving beyond the conventional focus on formal law and EU comitology to assess the extent of 'practice convergence' in the implementation of EU regulation. Drawing on 50 key informant interviews, a survey, and policy document analysis, we compare how regulators in England, Germany, France and the Netherlands have implemented EU requirements that food safety inspections be 'risk-based'. Focusing on a clear dependent variable-risk-scoring methods-we find important differences in the conception and targeting of risk-based inspections; with starkly different implications for what kind of food businesses they need to target to ensure safety within an ostensibly harmonized single market. We attribute variation in the implementation of risk-based inspection to the ways that EU requirements were filtered through long-entrenched regulatory styles and modes of food business organization in each country, reinforcing preexisting inspection practices in the design of new risk-based tools.

This article uses the case of animal welfare to contribute to academic debates about audit and better regulation reforms designed to reduce administrative burdens and increase regulatory effectiveness. Combining desk-based policy document analysis, on-farm field visits, and 31 interviews with livestock farmers and animal health and welfare inspectors in England, it explores farmers' record-keeping practices and the contrasting role regulatory records are understood to play in assurance and good animal husbandry by farmers, regulatory inspectors, and veterinary experts. Farmers experience record-keeping as something they must do to satisfy external regulatory demands rather than anything that good farmers might themselves use in caring for their livestock. As a result they regard paperwork as burdensome and often fail to comply with record-keeping requirements. By contrast, inspectors and animal welfare experts frame record-keeping and analysis as central to good animal husbandry and to a properly anticipatory approach to managing animal health and welfare. Those veterinary-medical presumptions about farm practice inform both the design of specific animal welfare record-keeping requirements and their self-effacing conceit as being about peering over the farmer's shoulder to audit already existing records. Our findings highlight the dual tendency for the practice of regulatory record-keeping to become decoupled from both the formal requirements and from the quality of care that paperwork is meant to assure. Our analysis extends the critical literature on audit and regulation by drawing on the materialist tradition of science and technology studies to elucidate how this decoupling is shaped by the physical form and materiality of records themselves.

Negotiations between the European Commission, the EU Council and the European Parliament on the new Inter-institutional  Agreement on  Better  Regulation are  unlikely  to  be  concluded, as  originally planned, before the end of 2015. An overview of the positions of these three parties reveals conflicting approaches to how the EU legislative process should work. It also exposes a clear case of power play between the institutions, and poses the question of whether EU policymaking should evolve in a more political or technocratic direction. It is in the interest of Poland, as a member of the Council supporting the community method, to advocate for more expertise in EU policymaking, but not to the detriment of democratic principles of EU governance

ZEI Insights No. 17
“The making of laws lies at the very heart of the EU political system.” ZEI Fellow Maria Kapiniaris assesses the governance challenges facing Commission Vice-President Timmermans and argues that he must act decisively, making necessary reforms to regulation and improving transparency.

Italy has long been known for its complex bureaucracy, however many steps are being taken to improve the current situation. During the last twenty years, new measures have been put in place to simplify numerous administrative processes in order to reduce costs and improving government services for business and individuals.
In this framework the article introduces one of the most important strategies for better regulation implemented by the Italian government during the past legislature, the MOA, a method for measuring the administrative burdens imposed by regulation on business. In the first part the authors describe recent improvements introduced for reducing burdens imposed by regulation, such as the introduction of estimation of burdens during the phase of Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) when new regulation has been proposed. In the second part the article discusses both limits of new measures and difficulties that public administrations may face in its application. A further critical point and a challenge is the case law of the Italian Constitutional Court. Indeed, the most recent decisions taken by the Constitutional Court confirm the constitutional nature of the simplification process.