Ton van Lierop is spokesperson of the cabinet of Commissioner Gunter Verheugen, who is responsible for industry and enterprise. He was approached by Darik Radio to comment the launch of the Better Regulation Program of the European Commission.
Tsvetana Minkova from Darik News talked to Ton van Lierop *
Q: What led to the idea of sending European Commission officials to see how European regulations are implemented in companies and enterprises?
A: The enterprise experience is of big importance for the European Commission because it was considered that people who work for the EC, know the inside very well, but do not know that well how things are going about in companies and enterprises. Commissioner Gunter Verheugen, who is responsible for industry and enterprise, came up with the idea to send people from the respective Directorate General to small to medium size companies and enterprises to see how they operate, how people work, what the concerns are and which European rules and regulations hamper them. He expects every of the 350 European officials, who will go to these companies in the next two years, to come back with at least one idea for change. The purpose is that every one brings one idea for a change - regulations that could be scrapped or simplified, procedures, which could be simplified so that companies have less red tape to deal with.
Q: Imagine it turns out that a particular regulation hampers the work of a company. Will it be scrapped or amended?
A: It won't happen overnight. It's a program of two years so after that there will be a big evaluation. In the meantime the Commission comes up with a program for better regulation, which will be announced next week. The program is to simplify, to put together regulations to make it easier for the companies. The enterprise experience as well is aimed at giving the officials an idea of what is it like to work in a company, how do you deal with daily company life, how do companies communicate with their staff, with each other. I think it's a very good experience to see what is actually going on in the business world.
Q: Could you throw some light over the Better Regulation Program?
A: The Better Regulation Program is aimed at cutting the administrative burden for the business world with about 25% by 2012. That could lead to annual saving of EUR 150 B for the whole EU. The money could be used for investments, innovations and new technologies, which could lead to growth and new jobs.
Q: How will you make the administrative burden decrease?
A: The administrative burden will be decreased because if there are less regulations the companies have to follow, if there are less procedures, it will cost them less time to follow that. It costs less involvement of administrative staff, which can do other things. The staff can be directed to other parts of the company. It costs less time and time is money. That's a way to save a considerable amount of money, which can lead up to 25% a year.
Q: Do you plan to include Bulgaria in the program after its accession in January 2007?
A: Of course, in the end there will be Bulgarian officials in Directorate Generals. So they well might be going to companies but EU officials will be going to companies all over Europe for the enterprise experience. And of course the cutting of red tape involves all countries because the EU regulations involve all European countries, so they will certainly involve Bulgaria.
Q: Will countries be sanctioned if they do not follow regulations on decreasing bureaucracy?
A: It's not sanctions that are a matter for the Commission itself but the driving force of Europe to come up with easier solutions, with simpler legislation, which is less time consuming. Over 50% of all legislation in a country can effectively be European legislation, which they have to implement. So if there's less European legislation coming, there's less national legislation as well. So it's not so much that a country will be sanctioned because they will not fulfil a European regulation. It's more that there are less European regulations that a country has to implement.
* Translated by Lora Petrova, Sofia News Agency
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