An old friend recently called me. She wants the Commission to adopt a piece of legislation. She wants it to happen soon.
I was asked “is it doable”?
At 48 I am cautious. It is a side effect of age. Getting new legislation tabled, let alone adopted, is not for the faint hearted.
With the Commission clearing the decks for ’emergency measures’ for Brexit and the last few months of this European Parliament, my gut reaction was ‘no chnce for a year’. But, it got me thinking.
My rule of thumb is it takes 10 years to get your issue taken up in new law and implemented. I break this down:
1. 2-3 years to get your issue on the political and policy agenda
2. 2-3 years to get the Commission to adopt the proposal
3. 2 years to get it adopted by the European Parliament and Council
4. 3 + years to get it implemented on the ground (or sea) or not.
You need patience if you want to change policy and laws. If you want to make sure that what you pushed is successfully implemented, you need to think in 10 years cycles.
You also need to be well resourced for 10 years.
Doing the leg work
People forget how much leg work there is in developing interest in an issue. Proposals don’t jump out of no-where. I know there are lots of issues that deserve attention and many of those issues may well benefit from being addressed by new regulation or legislation. The truth is that most never are considered.
In my experience, it takes around a year to develop the case for action, and another year to generate public and then political interest to legislate.
In both cases, you are working full-out and your well resourced. This is not cheap.
Also, your organisation needs to be focused on getting your initiative adopted. The risk for any organisation is that they have too many competing issues being tabled for uptake by regulators and legislators. If you have too many, your risk slippage.
7 Key Questions to Answer
In that time, you’ll find the answers for 7 simple questions.If you can’t answer them and provide the evidence – real facts please – please don’t waste your time.
These 7 questions are the same 7 the European Commission ask themselves:
- What is the problem and why is it a problem?
- Why should the EU act?
- What should be achieved?
- What are the various options to achieve the objectives?
- What are their economic, social and environmental impacts and who will be affected?
- How do the different options compare in terms of their effectiveness and efficiency (benefits and costs)?
- How will monitoring and subsequent retrospective evaluation be organised?
I have found that most of the time people can’t find strong cases to these 7 questions. If you can’t, drop the issue, or delay, and find the answers and evidence.
You need to find answers to all 7 and not jut 1.
The Commission may over look one or two of them, if the political pressure to act is too high. That hurdle is high. In practice it amounts to the personal  interest and intervention of the French President, German Chancellor, or Secretary-General .
This hurdle is not impossible to leap over – I have done it- but in practice it is best to go through more established chnnels.
Often, what you identify as a ‘problem’ is something to do with the local market failure or the actions of a member state. It’s got little or nothing to do with the EU. If that’s the case, the reason for the EU to step in and act is minimal.
Starting a Meaningful Debate
After you have 7 good answers, with preferably independent facts to support your case, you’ll need to promote a public policy debate. Working with think tanks in Brussels and the national capitals is key. In Brussels, I have personally found Friends of Europe and EPC to be important for pushing ideas up the political decision-making tree. Indeed, I cling to the belief that promoting a mindful debate via well-connected think tanks at the national and Brussels level is your surest bet.
Well placed stories in the FT, the Economist, and Politico help. I found that for reasons that remain largely unclear to me, coverage in the National Geographic has an important influence.
Policy windows
J.W. Kingdon (link) talks about policy windows to put your ideas forward. The most successful organisations have the studies and draft Bill ready in the drawer for when the political cycle returns on an interest.
Some organisations in Brussels practice this. Most don’t.
Getting your issue taken up in Brussels
The old days when you could get a good story placed in the press would lead to a Commissioner co-opting the issue and getting their staff to draft a legislative proposal have, for the most part, long gone.
Today, the windows of opportunity are prescribed by ‘Better Regulation’. The Better Regulation Guidelines lay out the procedure, steps and questions that a proposal needs to go through.
You’ll need to get proposal through the Commission’s internal adoption procedure.
This does not man you can’t use the ‘policy windows’, it just means you need to be aware of the Commission’s time-windows for when the policy windows occur.
Work Programme
Normal Work Programme
See this note.
New Commission Work Programme
If you are looking at the next Commission (November 2019)
- Next President’s Political Priorities (July 2019)
- Next Commission’s first Work Programme (December 2019)
- Next Commission’s second Work Programme (October 2020)
The Commission Services prepare in advance a draft Work Programme for the next President for the incumbent’s validation. This is being prepared.
Commissioner Confirmation Hearings
Another pathway is to have MEPs on the lead Committee(s) raise the issue during the confirmation hearings (October 2019). This may secure a political commitment to address the issue.
Fast is rarely good
In my experience, well prepared legislation is good legislation. This is not a speedy thing.
The 1st Daughter Directive on Ambient Air Pollution was drawn up by experts for 3 years before being given to the European Parliament and Council. The prior deliberations assisted the co-legislators in their deliberations. It brough the objective evidence to the table and helped clear up where the real sensitive points were.
Fast Track – Single Use Plastics
This file is an example of how fast a proposal can be taken up. This is one of the most fastly adopted – from idea, adoption, to political agreeemt – in this Commission.
Blue Planet II launched 29 October 2017 created a world-wide debate about plastics and marine pollution.
The proposal benefited from having the first Vice-President, Commissioner Timmermans, finally back the proposal, after initially not supporting it.
Yet, this issue first surfaced in the early 1970s, and has been laying beneath the surface, since then. It did not go away, but was washed over by other related issues. For an excellent exploration, I recommend this piece by Chris Rose.
Regulating Plastics – A timescale
- 13 September 2017: State of the Union (link) and letter of intent that mentions ‘concluding: a strategy on plastics working towards all plastic packaging on the EU market being recyclable by 2030″ (Draft Work Programme)
- 24 October 2017: Work programme published 24 October 2017 (link) mention “a strategy on plastics use, reuse and recycling“ (non legislative, Q4 2017)
- 9 November 2017: Commission ask ECHA to start look at REACH Restriction on micro plastics
- 15 December 2017: Public consultation on Inception Impact Assessment Reducing marine litter: action on single use plastics and fishing gear (link) ending 12 January 2018
- Â 16 January 2018: Communication “A European Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy” (link) including:
- start the process to restrict the intentional addition of micro plastics to products via REACH
- Actions to reduce single- use plastics: analytical work, including the launch of a public consultation, to determine the scope of a legislative initiative on single use plastics
- 17 January 2018: ECHA notification (link)
- 5 March 2018: Regulatory Scrutiny Board “ Negative Opinion on Reducing Marine Litter
- 6 April: Regulatory Scrutiny Board “Positive Opinion (with reservations) “ Reducing Marine Litter
- 22 May 2018: College of Commissioner adopt a Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the reduction of the impact of certain plastic products on the environment(link)
- 28 May 2018: Proposal for a Directive on reduction of the impact of certain plastic products on the environment (link) (press release)
- 28 May 2018: Public Consultation on proposal until 24 July 2018 (link)
- 24 October 2018: European Parliament – Plenary – 1st Reading
- 6 November 2018: First trilogue (information negotiations between Council and EP)
- 14 December 2018: Second trilogue
- 18 December 2018: Third trilogue (final?)
So, what looks like on first glance to be ‘fast’ policy making, is likely something that has been in the ‘policy mix’ for more than 40 years. It benefited from unusual, but not unrepeatable, circumstances to get to reach the surface and be adopted.