The Institute for Impact Assessment and Scientific Evaluation of Policy and Legislation
Robust and transparent evidence is needed to ensure an effective Common Agricultural Policy
May 3rd 2017
As its contribution to the public consultation that ended yesterday, 2nd May, the Impact Assessment Institute is publishing a study scrutinising the European Commission’s Inception Impact Assessment (IIA) “Communication on Modernising and Simplifying the Common Agricultural Policy”. The IIA comes at a very early stage in the policy making process and as such should present a balanced and flexible platform for compilation of evidence and ongoing analysis.
The IIA is an informative base for stakeholders to consider their policy input and is pitched at an appropriate level of detail at this early stage in the process. However, a number of elements of the analysis appear to have been already defined, even at this early point in the policy development. In particular, policy options and objectives require further input and analysis before being fixed.
Further, the IIA lacks references to background data that would be necessary to support the elements presented. Whilst the content appears to be relevant and material, clearly-referenced data sources are necessary in order to provide confidence to stakeholders that the analysis is robust and comprehensive.
In ongoing policy making, the above issues should be rectified by ensuring a clear and cogent line of reasoning between the current status, the needs of the main affected parties, the options for action and the potential concrete measures.
