Study: Rebalancing UK and European Regulation

18 April 2005

The Corporation of London published a study undertaken by the European Policy Forum on the practice of regulatory impact assessments. There are signs of unease in the City of London that the market opening and liberalising aspirations of the European Union’s Financial Services Action Plan (FSAP) are not being delivered. In addition, very heavy compliance burdens are being borne by financial services firms in London. The European Policy Forum’s work approaches the problem from two different directions.

Graham Mather analyses the way in which regulatory impact analysis (RIA) has come of age both in the United Kingdom and in the European Union. Regulatory impact analysis suffers from one profound institutional weakness: the impulse to legislate and regulate is a core dynamic of modern government. The institutional forces behind the regulatory imperative tend to be much stronger than the techniques and tools for analysing and evaluating the utility of regulatory measures.

Frank Vibert builds a least cost working model which uses the technique of cost effectiveness analysis. This model allows any Member State to develop a methodology to ensure that the benefits envisaged in Community legislation are not lost in transposition.

Full study

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