A pile of regulations from Brussels is suffocating European companies in administrative burdens. That was one of the main messages from Mario Draghi when he identified Europe's competitiveness problems in the Draghi Report.
But now there is good news.
On Tuesday evening, the Danish EU Presidency managed to conclude negotiations with the EU Parliament on the first of a total of six packages. Together, they will simplify rules in various areas in the EU.
- This agreement is an important first step from the co-legislators towards easing the administrative burden for businesses, citizens and public authorities.
- It is a crucial objective to strengthen Europe's competitiveness in the long term, as underlined in the Draghi report, says a written statement from the Danish EU presidency.
The green and digital transition
The agreement - which is called Omnibus II in Brussels parlance - is to simplify and strengthen the EU's investment tools. The focus is on the flagship program InvestEU. InvestEU is used to secure investments in the green and digital transition, innovation, competitiveness and social cohesion.
The agreement means, among other things, that the "reporting burden" for the funds will be simplified. This should help smaller companies in particular.
Moderator Stine Bosse, who has negotiated on behalf of the Renew group in the European Parliament, says about the agreement:
- Too often we think about the worst-case scenarios when we make laws. This ends up adding extensive monitoring and reporting rules that can become a bureaucratic nightmare for entrepreneurs.
- Now InvestEU will not only be simplified, but also expanded, says Stine Bosse.
Billions to save
The Commission estimates that the administrative simplification in the agreement will result in savings of around 350 million euros overall. This corresponds to around 2.6 billion kroner.
At the same time, the EU guarantee for the programme will be increased by 2.9 billion euros to a total of 29.1 billion euros. The hope is that it can help mobilize more than 50 billion euros in public and private investments.
The amount corresponds to around 370 billion kroner.
Denmark has strengthened competitiveness in the EU as one of the central points of the Danish EU presidency.
Therefore, work will now continue with the other five proposals from the EU Commission for regulatory simplification:
- It is crucial to streamline and simplify EU legislation if we want to maintain investments, production and jobs in Europe, writes the Danish EU presidency.
Danish Business praises the Danish EU presidency for getting the agreement done.
But there is a need to move forward quickly to get more agreements in place, believes Andreas Geertsen, head of EU and European policy at Danish Business.
- Now it is time to keep the momentum going and secure more genuine burden reduction for European businesses, so that we can strengthen our competitiveness. This is deeply necessary, he says.
/ritzau/
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