For nearly three decades, the European Commission has been pursuing the so-called Better Regulation agenda. At present, however, we are entering an era in which simplification is being given priority over essential protections, with a growing risk that key labour and environmental standards — which help ensure protection for workers and the environment worldwide — will be weakened or dismantled. While originally intended to simplify complex legislation, the agenda has been increasingly shifted towards serving business interests. Under President Ursula von der Leyen’s Commission, this shift has accelerated: regulations are now routinely portrayed as burdensome, especially when they entail costs for companies. In early 2025, the Commission introduced the “Omnibus” package to simplify EU rules and boost competitiveness. This includes an at least 25% reduction of administrative burdens and reporting obligations for companies and 35% for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), as well as the suspension of several legislative initiatives such as due diligence, corporate sustainability reporting, and EU taxonomy. After analysing these policies, this policy brief issues an urgent call for a rebalancing of the Better Regulation agenda to safeguard core social and environmental protections against an increasingly one-sided push for deregulation.

The European Union (EU) launched the European Pillar of Social Rights to improve social rights for EU citizens. However, little is known about the domestic dynamics of implementing these new rights. This article examines the implementation of the Work-Life Balance Directive in three member states with different policy traditions (Denmark, Germany, and Poland). Based on an actor-centred approach, the article demonstrates that two main factors were crucial in motivating national actors to shape the implementation of these rights. First, the economic costs, including new permanent costs emerging from the provisions and the administrative costs of implementing an EU directive, shaped actors’ positions in all three countries. Second, the values of gender equality – whether promoting gender-equal leave or traditional family values – constituted an underlying reason for actors to customise the EU rules differently. Both factors, used as a defence or driver for change, increase differentiated policy implementation.  

Seit fast 30 Jahren verfolgt die EU-Kommission die sogenannte Agenda der Besseren Rechtsetzung. Zu Beginn als Instrument, um komplexe gesetzliche Regelwerke zu vereinfachen, änderte sich die Zielsetzung allmählich zugunsten von Unternehmenswünschen. Unter der Führung von EU-Kommissionspräsidentin Ursula von der Leyen werden EU-Gesetze nun zunehmend als administrative Last beschrieben, sobald sie für Unternehmen als zu kostspielig betrachtet werden. 

The expansion of European Union (EU) regulations often hampers effective policy implementation in the member states. However, little is known about how these diverse states navigate and apply the complex rules in practice, and with what consequences. This study addresses this gap by examining how the 2014 EU public procurement directives impacted procurement practices across the Union. Using a difference-in-difference design, we find that the EU's goals of harmonisation and competition were undermined in practice. First, we observe a rise in single-bid contracts across EU countries compared to non-EU countries, undermining competition. Second, we demonstrate a growing divergence in policy implementation, where member states with varying administrative capacities and corruption risks display different rates of single bids. Third, we show that while a few Eastern European countries with poor procurement records embraced the flexibility to award contracts based on the most economically advantageous tender, Nordic countries largely avoided this flexibility. This divergence raises concerns that the new EU rules have brought about new corruption risks. These findings have important implications, underscoring the unintended consequences of expanding complex and flexible regulations, revealing that efforts to harmonise the internal market can backfire, leading to increased differentiated policy implementation across the member states.

This study examines the evolution of the better regulation agenda, particularly under President Ursula von der Leyen. Using Stone’s (1988, 2012) concept of public policy, the analysis identifies two main dimensions in EU official documents: the presentation of a policy problem requiring attention, and the policy solutions proposed to address or resolve it. The analysis relies on primary data, which includes all official EU documents, and secondary data from civil society and media. The documents have been analysed via qualitative, semi-automatic content analysis conducted with Atlas.ti.

The analysis reveals a shift in the Commission’s better regulation agenda and its policies over time. Initially, in the early 1990s, EU law was considered as being too technical and complex, leading to efforts to make EU law clearer and simpler. However, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, EU legislation was increasingly seen as a burden, particularly for businesses. Consequently, the primary policy solution became the simplification of EU legislation, driven by a deregulatory agenda that often compromised societal standards. Under Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, the same policy problems persisted, but the approach to policy solutions became more diverse and comprehensive. Instruments like REFIT, the REFIT platform, and the Regulatory Scrutiny Board (RSB) were introduced, with a more inclusive language compared to the previous period.

A notable shift took place under Commission President Ursula von der Leyen by framing the policy problem solely as EU legislation being too burdensome and costly for businesses, especially for SMEs. Importantly, the definition of SMEs is so broad that 99.8% of all companies nowadays fall under this category. The overall focus shifted to costs, making them a central issue. As a result, policy solutions have aimed at relieving these burdens and costs, pursuing the ‘One-In, One-Out’ (OIOO) principle, which considers only costs, while leaving out the value of a regulation. Thus, the principle at EU level portrays regulation as a zero-sum game. Despite criticism, von der Leyen has prioritised the OIOO approach and cost reduction, creating favourable conditions for SMEs often exempted from control and reporting obligations. As a result, even substantial enterprises that are part of large groups, like the Austrian Signa Holding, are classified as small and medium-sized enterprises and thus have reduced reporting obligations. The Signa group eventually went bankrupt in 2023, marking the largest insolvency case in the European real estate sector. 

These policies have the potential to undermine social and environmental standards. The overall analysis indicates a more deregulatory focus under von der Leyen, contrasting sharply with the ambitious objectives of the European Green Deal and the European Pillar of Social Rights. For instance, in a 2023 report on administrative burdens, the Commission labelled a new EU law protecting workers from asbestos exposure as a burden for companies, while completely overlooking the benefits of maintaining workers' health, continued employment, and their contributions to taxes and social security. 

Looking ahead, the Commission has announced continued easing of reporting obligations for businesses, with rationalisation plans for 2024 and beyond. The Letta report on the Single Market further highlights the target to reduce regulatory and administrative burdens, benefiting businesses, especially SMEs. However, these policies may lead to a prioritisation of corporate interests over societal rights, endangering welfare systems and a risk of more precarious working conditions across the EU. Furthermore, the EU Strategic Agenda 2024-2029 aligns closely with the direction outlined in the Letta report. Again, the emphasis is on bureaucratic burdens for companies. Surprisingly, socio-political goals like public health are not a significant focus despite the COVID-19 pandemic. The agenda maintains a commitment to better regulation, with the Letta report stressing the need to support European businesses globally by reducing regulatory burdens. These developments indicate a likely continuation of von der Leyen's better regulation policies in the coming years. 

The European Social Dialogue (ESD) has served as the platform for European social partners to negotiate parental leave policies at the European Union (EU) level since 1995. The partners’ efforts to revise the regulations in 2015, in response to the European Commission’s broader approach toward European work–life balance policies, failed, however, and the reasons for and implications of this failure remain insufficiently explored. Drawing on existing ESD literature and leveraging the regulator-intermediary-target (RIT) model, the authors develop a typology of policymaking outcomes based on the analysis of three parental leave directives from 1996 to 2019. The findings demonstrate that divergent preferences among European social partners, particularly when juxtaposed against the Commission’s policy objectives and interests, reduced the probability of a successful ESD through which European social partners could generate a framework agreement. Instead of being rule-makers, these conditions relegated European social partners to the role of rule-takers. If this trend continues, it poses a significant challenge to the role and influence of European social partners in EU policymaking.

This article examines factors that could contribute to explaining variation in take-up of leave among fathers in the light of the EU’s Work–Life Balance Directive (WLBD). The WLBD seeks to equalize care responsibilities between fathers and mothers, especially through reserved leave, with high compensation. The article begins with a cross-country overview of take-up of leave among eligible fathers, considering earmarking and the degree of compensation. Our results show variation, which cannot fully be explained by policy design (presence of high compensation with reserved leave for fathers). The article then theorizes that instrumental resources – information and accessible administrative application procedures – could be a missing link to understand the actual shift from de jure to de facto social rights. The article then carries out embedded case studies on these two aspects of instrumental resources, using original qualitative data collected during the implementation of the WLBD. The most striking finding is that countries with similar formal implementation of earmarked paid parental leave, display significant differences in commitment to instrumental resources. Put differently, the WLBD is being implemented differently, not regarding formal social rights, but on instrumental resources. This finding is important because it means that EU-initiated legislation on parental leave, could lead to differences in outcomes, that is, take-up of leave among fathers. The implication of our findings is that decision-makers and policy actors at EU level and in member states, should focus more on instrumental resources in the implementation process. This is particularly important for enhancing the de facto legitimacy of the EU in social policy, given that EU social regulation is increasing via the European Pillar of Social Rights.

This study analyses the European Commission's strategies to counteract Member States' non-compliance with EU law between 1989 and 2018. Based on a theoretical framework that distinguishes between a normative and a regulative approach in the Commission's strategies, the study conducts a semi-automatic content analysis of all annual reports on monitoring the application of EU law and further supports this analysis with other EU sources. The results demonstrate that the Commission shifted from a normative approach based on management tools in the late 1980s and early 1990s to a more regulative approach with enhanced enforcement four decades later. Moreover, the Commission's role as driver for European integration has changed. In times of crisis and increased domestic contestation, the Commission has become a more authoritarian prosecutor of European policies.