Regulatory Impact Assessment in Greece

1. Regulatory Impact Assessment in Greece Dr. P.Karkatsoulis Policy Advisor to the Ministry of Interior, Public Administration and Decentralization, Professor at the National School of Public Administration

2. The background of regulatory reform in Greece • Several fragmented efforts on: • Simplification • Codification • Transposition • Law drafting • Intensive discussion inside and outside Greece • OECD report (2001) • EU policy on Better Regulation (2002)

3. The size of the norm flow European Union: EU-Aquis composed by 16.000 Directives covers 96.000 pages. Greece: 3430 Parliamentary laws in the last 30 years, 5 times more Presidential decrees authorized by the law and 63 times more ministerial decisions.

4. Main problems The main problems of the Greek regulatory system were identified as: • There are too many and very detailed regulations in force • Provisions on the same issues are interspersed to different regulations • The increasing production of regulations by the administration

5. Regulatory Inflation

7. Dispersed Horizontal Structure • Ministry of Foreign Affairs • For notification of the transposed aquis • Ministry of Economics • For the transposition of the aquis • General Accounting Office • For the impact on state budget • Ministry of Interior • For simplification and codification issues • Central Committee for the preparation of legislation • For technical suggestions on bills • Council of the State • Consulted for Presidential Decrees • Parliament • Scientific Committees • Committees and Plenary

8. Do we know the reasons why does it happen? Some basic assumptions • The form of the state • The existing legislative culture • The welfare state • Unexpected social events/periods of fast social movements • International Organizations • State intervention to economic transactions

9. Crucial achievements • One – stop – shops for citizens and businesses • Sufficient infrastructure (e – government) • Pool of experts

10. Lack of a regulatory reform strategy • While the weaknesses of the legislative instrumentarium are well known, the measures taken were mostly conceived as ad hoc reactions. • The new IAs (energy, telecom, competition) have been used as driving forces for the new era of better regulation.

11. The EU Better Regulation • Mandelkern report • It describes a comprehensive overall approachto better regulation. • It recommends practices applicable to both national governments and the European Commission. • It also makes recommendations to the Institutions of the EU • Commissions Action plan • It launched a series of measuresto review the body of existing law. • The European IA • It aims to improve the quality of the Commission's policy proposals in terms of their efficiency, effectiveness and coherency. • It identifies alternative policy options and their likely positive and negative impacts, with a particular focus on economic, environmental and social effects, in line with the EU Sustainable Development Strategy • The DEBR network • The DEBR performs an advocacy role, promoting best practices and initiating new thinking. • It promotes the exchange of national practices • The DEBR is capable of adding value to the EU level debate by staging a dialogue about issues that are not on the official EU agenda yet.

12. The legal framework for regulatory reform • Following the OECD recommendations (2001) and the EU priorities, Greece established an inter-ministerial Committee to elaborate a new framework for the improvement of regulation . • The ad hoc inter-ministerial legislative Committee had to overcome a lot of obstacles, misunderstandings and peculiarities. • The draft remained in “queue” more than two years, until…

13. The legal framework for regulatory reform ….The Prime Minister issued a circular “on the national regulatory policy and the quality and effectiveness of regulations”, on July 2006. The circular was addressed to: • Ministers • Deputy Ministers • The Secretary General of the Government • The Secretaries General of all Ministries • The Secretaries General of the Regions

14. The Prime Minister’s circular:The procedures of better law making • Identify the problem to which the proposed regulation is going to give a solution • Assess the impact of the regulation on • the Economy (i.e. competitiveness, investment, market, administrative burdens imposed on SMEs etc…) • Society (i.e. labour, gender mainstreaming, health, persons with disabilities …) • The environment • Alternative options to regulation should be considered • Achieve a consensus through broad public participation

15. MINISTRY I MINISTRY II MINISTRY … Regulatory Quality Assessment Unit Regulatory Quality Assessment Unit Regulatory Quality Assessment Unit . . . REGION … . . . Regulatory Quality Assessment Unit REGION I REGION II Regulatory Quality Assessment Unit Regulatory Quality Assessment Unit The Prime Minister’s circular:Structures Supervised by the General Secretariat of the Government

16. Necessity Proportio- nality Legality Transparency Simplicity Accessibility The Prime Minister’s circular:Principles of better regulation

17. The Prime Minister’s circularTools of better regulation: RIA According to the Prime Minister’s circular regulations should be checked against: • Their impact on the economy • Their impact on competitiveness • The simplification of procedures • Quality law drafting rules/Accessibility • Codification • Transposition

18. Multi – level government The criteria of better regulation should be implemented in the case of: • A new regulation • A regulation which is going to be simplified • A regulation which is going to be codified • A regulation which transposes an EU directive

19. The way forward • Manual on the use of e – RIA has been elaborated • Specific Action plans requested from each Ministry • Ex – post Impact Assessment prepared for the end of 2007 • All the Ministries have to have finished the RIA implementation project by the end of 2007

20. Thank you for your attention Dr. Panagiotis Karkatsoulis pkark@otenet.gr