Despite the European Commission’s repeated commitments to Better Regulation and administrative simplification, legislative output across the EU has continued to grow. This position paper, published by Ceemet, examines the gap between the EU’s simplification rhetoric, from the 2024 single market strategy to successive Omnibus packages, and the reality of rising regulatory density, including record levels of implementing and delegated acts.

Drawing on Eurlex statistics and independent assessments such as the Draghi Report, Ceemet argues that regulatory pressure cannot be measured by counting legislative acts alone, since individual measures are becoming more detailed and burdensome even where the number of new laws stabilises.

The paper highlights persistent shortcomings in the use of ex-ante impact assessments and ex-post evaluations, and points to the limited results delivered so far under the REFIT programme. Ceemet calls on the EU institutions to fully implement Better Regulation tools, stop new initiatives that create additional burdens, systematically simplify existing legislation, and deliver an annual, evidence-based accounting of actual, not simply projected, reductions in regulatory costs, with particular attention to the needs of SMEs and the competitiveness of the Single Market.