The Institute for Impact Assessment and Scientific Evaluation of Policy and Legislation

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January 20th 2020

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Between January 2018 and December 2019, 1,779 implementing directives and regulations have been published, according to the European Commission’s comitology webpage. 

The following is a summary of our observations:

• Among these 1,779 implementing acts, 30 contain at least 100 pages and another 63 contain at least 50 pages. Page length is an indication of the extent and complexity of the legislative act, although we do not infer any direct correlation to impact.

• Almost half of the acts (863 out of 1,779) were published since June 2019. 

• Through a search of the European Commission’s impact assessment database, twelve implementing regulations out of the 1,779 implementing regulations and directives were accompanied by impact assessments. In each case the impact assessments were published at the same time as the final implementing act itself, therefore preventing full scrutiny of the evidence by stakeholders before adoption. 

To inform our analysis further, stakeholders are hence invited to provide expert input and arguments on any implementing acts whose impacts are substantial enough to have required an impact assessment.