From Impact Assessment to the Policy Cycle : Drawing Lessons from the EU's Better-Regulation Agenda

The European Union launched its first comprehensive better-regulation agenda in 2002 and has since then been constantly modifying and improving its toolkit aimed at guaranteeing the quality of its legislation. The first better-regulation agenda followed the pioneering experience of some of its member states and introduced a formal procedure of ex ante impact assessment (IA) as well as minimum criteria for stakeholder consultation. Different variables explain the rise of EU-level IA, such as reactions to the overuse of the precautionary principle in risk analysis and health policy (especially in chemicals and tobacco); pressure from finance ministers in countries such as the U.K. and the Netherlands to introduce evidence-based procedures in policy formulation, thus increasing accountability; and organizational developments within the European Commission, with an expansion to regulatory policy of tools originally crafted for sustainable development policies