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Impact Assessment and the Policy Cycle in the EU

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Giacomo Luchetta
Giacomo Luchetta*
Affiliation:
LUISS “Guido Carli” University – Rome and Regulatory Affairs Programme of the Centre for European Policy Studies – Brussels
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Abstract

With the Communication on Smart Regulation issued in October 2010, the European Commissiontried to foster a better management of the whole policy cycle. According to thatCommunication, amending policy proposals must be preceded by an ex-post assessmentof the current situation, allowing “closing the policy cycle”. This paper tries to answer thequestion whether the EU Impact Assessments System is fit to steer and close the policy cycle,and what is the relation between ex-ante IA and ex-post evaluation “on the ground” so far. This is done via a macro and micro analysis, based on scorecard approach and three casestudies, comparing the EU IA system performance with a theoretical benchmark derived from the EU policy document and process. The paper concludes that the EU Impact Assessmentsystem, as it is currently designed and implemented, is not yet fi t to steer and closethe policy cycle. To achieve this goal, all the analytical and empirical layers of the policycycle should be fully dealt with since the ex-ante phase.

Type
Articles
Information
European Journal of Risk Regulation , Volume 3 , Issue 4 , December 2012 , pp. 561 - 575
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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References

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