The European Parliament has allocated budgets for committees to employ consultants to undertake impact assessments on their behalf and is starting to make use of these budgets to analyse the effect that their proposed amendments to European legislation would have on the various stakeholders.
Also helping raise awareness among Members of the European Parliament was a plenary debate on Better Regulation based around four reports by MEPs. Impact Assessment and implementation were the main themes of the debate with the MEPs largely speaking in favour of more objective impact assessment and stressing the importance of simplification and repeal, while respecting the objectives of the legislation.