Constantinos Saravakos // 20 May 2026

On 28 April 2026, the European Commission unveiled its “Better Regulation and Enforcement” reform package. The initiative promotes “simplicity by design,” regulatory deep cleaning across twelve priority areas, the reduction of national gold-plating, and faster enforcement — all presented as essential steps to cut red tape and boost European competitiveness.

Drawing on the EU Regulatory Quality Index 2025, this briefing shows that the central problem facing EU lawmaking is not merely the volume of regulation but its persistently poor quality. EU legislation continues to feature overly complex language (sentence lengths nearly double plain-English standards), accelerating regulatory inflation, impact assessments that routinely omit territorial, SME, and financial analyses, uneven stakeholder consultations, inconsistent early-stage planning, and transposition rates below 50 per cent.

While the Commission’s stated objectives are legitimate, the reform risks prioritising speed over substance. By accelerating legislative processes and potentially weakening procedural safeguards such as impact assessments and consultations, the proposal could entrench rather than resolve existing quality deficits and open the door to the substantive dilution of environmental, social, and consumer protections.

The briefing concludes with six evidence-based recommendations to ensure the reform genuinely strengthens legislative clarity, analytical rigour, stakeholder inclusiveness, and implementation capacity.

The main findings of the briefing include:

• EU legislation suffers from chronically complex language, weak impact assessments, and inconsistent consultations.
• The Commission’s reform risks accelerating legislative output at the expense of evidence, transparency, and accountability.
• Faster Brussels-level processes will not solve the persistent implementation bottleneck at Member State level.
• Without stronger safeguards, “simplification” could become a vehicle for weakening protective standards.
• Practical reforms focused on plain language, mandatory analyses, and implementation support would deliver genuinely better regulation.