Panagiotis Karkatsoulis, Efi Stefopoulou, and Constantinos Saravakos // 3 February 2026

This paper examines persistent shortcomings in the European Union’s Better Regulation Framework and argues that formal procedural compliance has not translated into high-quality regulatory outcomes.

Drawing on evidence from the EU Regulatory Quality Index 2025, it shows that impact assessments and stakeholder consultations are now standard features of EU lawmaking, yet frequently suffer from weak economic analysis, limited consideration of administrative and compliance costs, and inadequate implementation planning.

The increasing reliance on urgency and crisis-driven lawmaking has further eroded evidentiary standards, normalising rushed or incomplete assessments and reducing transparency around regulatory trade-offs. The paper also finds that stakeholder consultations, while lengthy, remain fragmented and siloed, limiting their ability to capture cumulative and cross-sectoral effects.

Finally, it highlights how legislative complexity, exacerbated by the growing use of delegated and implementing acts, raises compliance costs and legal uncertainty, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises.

The paper concludes by outlining practical reforms to strengthen evidence, improve consultation design, and embed simplicity by design in EU lawmaking.

The main findings of the briefing include:

• Compliance with the Better Regulation Framework exists at the procedural level but often fails in practice.
• Urgency is increasingly used to justify weaker evidence standards.
• Stakeholder consultations are long, but fragmented and siloed.
• EU legislation remains complex, costly, and hard to implement.