Impact assessment at the CoR : methodology and its implementation

This report looks at the system whereby the European Commission assesses the potential impact of policy and legislative proposals as an early, and integral, part of its decision making processes. It focuses in particular on analysing how the impact on specific territories and regional authorities (LRA) across the European Union should be assessed. The report concludes with specific proposals based on detailed analysis, and provides some insight as to how the Committee of the Regions could help to improve the quality of impact assessments. This report analyses a sample of 31 impact assessments carried out in the period 2007-2009 using a standard evaluation grid, based on the contents of the latest version of the European Commission's impact assessment guidelines. This grid has been developed for the purpose of this study and for further use by CoR services, and tries to analyse the extent to which territorial impact and consequences for LRA have been taken into account in these impact assessments.