A new consultation of all industry stakeholders, with a strong focus on input from SMEs, was adopted and launched on 17 October by the European Commission, together with the adoption of the Commission work programme 2024.

The purpose of this consultation is to contribute to the European Commission’s objective to rationalise reporting requirements for businesses and Member States, and reduce administrative burden by 25% in the medium term.

With this ‘call for evidence’, the Commission is seeking feedback, ideas and input from EU businesses and Member States on which reporting requirements originating from EU legislation are considered as the most burdensome in terms of the time it takes to fulfil them, the costs associated with them and the overall difficulty in meeting the requirements. 

In this context, the Commission is looking for indications of the areas where inefficient requirements are particularly problematic, with quantitative data on the burden induced by those requirements. 

In addition, the Commission is also looking for your suggestions for rationalisation, modernisation or optimisation, such as eliminating redundant requirements, adjusting the frequency of reporting, proposing options for digitalisation, applying the ‘once only’ principle, making better use of other data sources, or other possible efficiency gains. This should however not undermine policy objectives or standards of conduct and protection.

 We strongly encourage you to contribute to the consultation via the Make a suggestion: (europa.eu) Portal. More information on the consultation process can be found here: Have your say: Simplify! (europa.eu). The ‘call for evidence’ is available in all official EU languages and is open for feedback on the Commission’s portal for 6 weeks as of 17 October 2023.