McCreevy seeks to subject legislation to impact assessments

INTERNAL Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy wants to scrap any draft legislation found to have a negative or negligible impact on Europe’s economy.

The former finance minister believes all proposed legislation should be subjected to impact assessments twice before becoming law. Currently impact assessments are carried out on proposals when they emerge from the Commission, but Mr McCreevy argues that by the time the Council and Parliament amend them, the original can be changed considerably.

“What I intend to do is reassess the proposals again half way through the process because very often the Commission proposes something, then it has to go through changes from the Council and the Parliament and in the end, it has become something different”, he said.

Testing should discover whether the final draft will in fact encourage and promote economic activity in the Union, whether its impact will be negligible or if its effect could be to reduce growth. If the assessment shows that implementing the changes would be more trouble than what they might achieve or it would have a negative impact, then “I am prepared to scrap it,” said Mr McCreevy.

The Commissioner also indicated he is willing to make major changes to the Services Directive, a piece of draft legislation aimed at opening up the single market for services from banking to health. Some of its provisions have caused controversy since launched last year by Mr McCreevy’s predecessor, former Commissioner Frits Bolkestein.

The country of origin aspect has been criticised especially by members of the European Parliament including Labour MEP Proinsias de Rossa, by trade unions and some governments. Mr McCreevy has disputed the way many of these groups are interpreting the draft, but he said he is listening to all sides before making changes. The new Commission will re-launch the so called Lisbon agenda on Wednesday designed to promote economic growth and jobs in the EU.

Mr McCreevy defended the emphasis it will place on facilitating economic growth and he denies that this means side-lining environment and social concerns.