Getting it right the first time: why smart regulation beats constant "quick fixes"

The European Union has promised to "cut red tape" and make environmental laws easier to follow. However, for most economic sectors and ordinary citizens, these improvements remain invisible. While the intentions behind new environmental rules are positive, the practical experience on the ground is often one of growing paperwork and confusing requirements. The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) recently highlighted that despite various "simplification" initiatives, many sectors—particularly the agri-food industry—are still waiting for changes that actually make their daily work easier.

The frustration of "fix-it" legislation

The core of the problem lies in how laws are created in the first place. Currently, the EU often relies on "Omnibus" packages — large-scale legislative "cleanups"— to fix mistakes or complications in previous laws. For the EESC Employers' Group, this constant need for corrective packages is a symptom of a deeper issue: a lack of "regulatory quality".

If laws were designed correctly from the beginning, based on solid scientific evidence and a true understanding of how they affect real people, we would not need these constant "quick fixes" later. The EESC’s Opinion on the Omnibus environment makes it clear: quality lawmaking requires fully developed impact assessments and meaningful conversations with the people who actually have to implement the rules. When laws are rushed or poorly designed, the "simplification" that follows rarely feels like a benefit to businesses and citizens; it feels like another layer of bureaucracy to learn.

Why improvements have not reached the public

There are several structural reasons why businesses and citizens have not felt the weight of regulation lift:

• Fragmentation Between Countries: even when the EU tries to simplify a rule, different Member States often implement it in different ways. This regulatory fragmentation means that a company trying to work across borders faces different digital systems and reporting formats in every country, creating a massive administrative burden that wipes out any gains from the original simplification.
• Rushed Consultations: to make laws that work for everyone, the government needs to listen to everyone. However, in our Opinion we stress that recent public consultations were very limited. This makes it nearly impossible for businesses, but also other social partners, to provide the feedback needed to make rules practical.
• The Digital Gap: while the EU promotes the "Once Only" principle - where users only give their data to the government once - this is not yet a reality because national digital systems do not  share data with each other, businesses find themselves entering the same information into multiple platforms, leading to a feeling that digitalisation has added to their workload rather than reducing it.

A call for tangible change

To move beyond political promises and deliver real-world results, in our Opinion we call for a simplification that must be proportionate and supportive. This is especially true for companies, especially small and medium ones (SMEs), which do not have large legal teams to navigate complex environmental codes. For them simplification is not just a nice idea, it is a matter of economic survival.

Furthermore, we warn that the "level playing field" is currently uneven. European businesses are often held to much higher standards than global competitors, yet they are the ones struggling with the most complex reporting rules. Unless simplification measures are paired with effective enforcement at EU borders, European companies will continue to feel the burden of regulation without seeing the competitive benefits of a streamlined system.

Quality over quantity

The path to a greener Europe should not be paved with more paperwork. Our message is a wake-up call: it is time to stop the cycle of constant legislative corrections. By focusing on regulatory quality—doing the hard work of planning, listening, and assessing impact before a law is voted on—the EU can finally deliver a system where simplification is a tangible reality for every citizen and business, not just a line in a policy report.

By Felipe Medina, EESC Employers' Group member and Rapporteur of Opinion NAT/969 Omnibus environment - Simplification of administrative burden in environmental legislation.