Stricter rules on impact statement

In adopting the report by Mr Graham MATHER (PPE, UK), the European Parliament called for an impact statement to accompany any legislative proposal likely to lead to an increase in costs for small enterprises. This assessment should take an official and legal form and any modification of this assessment system should be subject to prior consultation with Parliament and the Council. Parliament proposed that the assessment appear at the end of the relevant EU legislative proposal and that it be distributed to Parliament, the Council and other European institutions. The assessment should be accessible to the public at large and be easily identifiable (Bullock type presentation). As regards institutional responsibilities, Parliament called on those directorates-general responsible for drawing up legislative acts to consult the Directorate-General for Enterprise Policy in those cases where the proposed legislation had a knock-on effect on SMEs. Parliament took the view that a limited assessment of the probable impact of any regulation should be undertaken before deciding on the appropriateness of the legislation and that no proposal from the Commission should be put to the vote of the Members of the Commission without being accompanied by an assessment of its impact on enterprises. If Parliament and the Council adopted amendments which substantially modified a regulation, the Commission should present a revised version of this assessment. Similarly, the impact assessment should be re-examined on a regular basis. Finally, with regard to its own role, Parliament called for each report which dealt with the examination of a legislative text and included an impact assessment to be duly examined from a cost/benefit point of view and advocated that when a proposal was being examined, the impact assessment should be an integral part of this proposal. It called on the Commission to examine the due financial means for preparing an impact assessment. Lastly, Parliament proposed that after the implementation of a strengthened assessment system, a review of this system should take place after a period of 5 years. �