EESC urges a rethink of EU law-making in the digital age

The EESC is the first EU body to offer concrete recommendations on using digital tools to improve law-making – an area still plagued by complexity and opacity. With 18 000 pages of binding legislation added each year and annual administrative costs reaching €150 billion, AI could be a gamechanger in making EU laws more accessible to Europeans.

The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) has issued a set of recommendations to EU institutions on the responsible use of digital tools in law-making.

In an opinion adopted at its July plenary, the EESC called for the benefits of technologies such as AI and automation to be harnessed to improve transparency and efficiency, while putting strong safeguards in place to prevent discrimination, bias, and inaccuracies in the legislative process.

This could significantly enhance legal consistency, reduce single market barriers and administrative burdens and, most importantly, improve compliance and increase trust in public institutions.

‘In the era of cloud computing and AI, it is paradoxical that Europe’s legislative machinery still operates with a mindset reminiscent of Napoleonic times’, said the rapporteur for the opinion, Alena Mastantuono.

‘Our legal framework remains overly complex, fragmented, and difficult to navigate’, she said. ‘Neither citizens nor lawmakers can easily track how rules interact, making compliance challenging and eroding trust in institutions.’

Over the decades, laws have accumulated, creating unintended bureaucratic burdens and rendering the system increasingly opaque.

Figures show that the EU generates 18 000 pages of new binding legislation every year. It would take the average citizen about 720 hours a year to read all these legal texts – that’s equivalent to two hours per day. In 2022 alone, recurring administrative costs across the EU were estimated at €150 billion.

Ms Mastantuono highlighted that the EESC was the first EU institution to set out how digital tools should be used in making laws: ‘The EESC offers solutions and puts forward recommendations on how the EU’s law-making process should evolve – leveraging digital tools and mapping legal obligations more effectively.’

‘A general review of EU law should be citizen-focused and data-driven. We must ensure that laws remain fit for purpose — for citizens, SMEs, and the environment,' said the co-rapporteur for the opinion, Tymoteusz Zych.

The EESC recommended that all new legal acts – be it at EU, national, regional or local level – should come with a clear, easy-to-understand and concise summary of what they require. These summaries, written by regulators to ensure accuracy and clarity, would also be formatted to work with digital tools. This would allow artificial intelligence to step in – spotting overlaps, inconsistencies, and gaps by connecting related rules and showing how different legal norms interact. The same should be done for existing legislation to make it more accessible to the public.

Another recommendation is to set up a unified, interoperable EU digital platform for law-making, which would centralise texts and metadata, enable real-time consistency checks and encourage the use of harmonised language.

At the same time, the EESC stresses the need for a human-centred approach where AI tools help legislators rather than replacing them.

Before digital tools are put into operation, there should be careful review and proper training, and it should be easy for people to give feedback or report problems. Clearer rules will also make it easier for civil society to follow how their feedback is considered by law-makers. The EESC sees transparency in public consultations as crucial but also emphasises that digital literacy is essential for meaningful participation.

While online tools can help gather input, the EESC warned that they should never replace traditional methods of engaging with trade unions, social partners, and especially vulnerable communities.

Countries have already started adopting innovative digital tools for law-making. The private sector is offering great inspiration for e-tools helping businesses with compliance, such as the Czech Legal Electronic System.