Impact Assessment in the EU: The State of the Art and the Art of the State

The importance of ex ante and ex post impact assessment in streamlining the regulatory environment and improving the legislative process has been stressed by scholars and testified to by international best practices. The potential benefits of regulatory impact assessment are also being rediscovered by EU officials, who lose no chance to recall that the Commission's ambitious "growth and jobs" strategy heavily depends on the pervasiveness of impact assessment in the regulatory process at EU and member state level. This study, conceived for scholars and policymakers, provides an overview of the state of the art on impact assessment. It focuses on the latest developments in the United States, UK, and EU, and presents a scorecard analysis of the Commission's extended impact assessments. The author concludes with a road map for improving the transparency, efficiency, and effectiveness of the EU Integrated Impact Assessment model.

Andrea Renda is head of the Regulatory Affairs Program at CEPS, a lecturer at Luiss Guido Carli University of Rome, and coordinator of the European Network for Better Regulation.