On 12 March 2026, the European Parliament plenary adopted a report on Better Law-Making covering 2023 and 2024 – European Union regulatory fitness and subsidiarity and proportionality, led by rapporteur MEP Jörgen Warborn. The report was backed by a large majority of Members of the European Parliament, with 493 votes in favour.
The vote reflects a growing recognition across the Parliament that the way EU legislation is designed and implemented is not keeping pace with today’s economic realities. For Europe’s metal, engineering and technology-based (MET) industries, the debate on better regulation is not abstract. Regulatory complexity, SME unfriendliness, overlapping requirements and insufficiently tested rules have direct consequences for investment decisions, production planning and job creation.
The adopted report by MEP Warborn acknowledges several of these challenges and points towards practical improvements. First, it calls for stronger application of subsidiarity and proportionality, more comprehensive and transparent impact assessments, and a more systematic review of existing legislation before new rules are introduced. It also underlines the need to better assess how legislation affects competitiveness and the cumulative burden on businesses.
A key element highlighted in the report is the potential evolution of the EU’s regulatory principle. For several years, the Commission has been trying to apply the “one in, one out” rule, which aims to introduce new regulatory costs with equivalent reductions elsewhere. The report encourages moving further towards “one in, two out”, meaning that for every new regulatory cost introduced, two should be removed in order to actively reduce the overall burden on companies.
These are some of the issues that MET industries have been raising for a long time. In Ceemet position paper, published less than one month ago, better regulation is shown to be the driver of EU competitiveness. In the paper, Ceemet highlights that MET industries are facing increasing pressure from global competition, supply chain disruptions and volatile energy and raw material prices. In this context, poorly designed or excessively complex regulation risks adding further strain rather than providing much-needed solutions to the hundreds of thousands of companies in the sector.
The Ceemet paper stresses that the objective should not be deregulation, but better regulation. This means legislation that is problem-driven, practical to implement and enforceable on the ground. It also requires a more consistent use of high-quality impact assessments at different stages of law-making that fully take into account competitiveness, sector-specific effects and the cumulative impact of different legislative initiatives.
There is a clear alignment between these priorities and several elements of the Parliament’s report. The focus on improving impact assessments, evaluating legislation after adoption and simplifying existing rules reflects concerns that MET industries have repeatedly expressed. The same applies to the need for greater legal clarity and more attention to how rules function in practice, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises. As a reminder, over 90% of MET sector companies in Europe are SMEs.
The Warborn report also echoes a point that industry has consistently made: it claims that the EU should first ensure that existing legislation works effectively before adding new layers of regulation. As highlighted in Ceemet’s paper, shortcomings in upholding high social standards in the world of work often stem not from the absence of rules, but from issues related to implementation, enforcement or inconsistencies between different pieces of legislation. The lack of clear enforcement ends up disproportionately punishing bona fide companies.
For MET industries, the direction of travel outlined in the Warborn report is therefore a very positive one. It signals a stronger awareness within the European Parliament that better law-making is not a procedural issue, but a key factor shaping Europe’s industrial competitiveness. The challenge now is to translate these orientations into day-to-day legislative practice, ensuring that future EU initiatives are clearer, more coherent and better adapted to the realities faced by companies across Europe.