The European Union must constantly be on the lookout for cases of “gold-plating” and other burdensome regulations warns the ECR in a new policy paper today.

The European Union must constantly be on the lookout for cases of “gold-plating” and other burdensome regulations warns the ECR in a new policy paper today.

The warning over the EU’s regulatory burden including so called “gold-plating” – when Member States take EU legislation and add their own unrelated and unnecessary clauses – was issued as Anthea McIntyre MEP unveiled the ECR’s plan to improve the European Commission’s annual burden survey.

Led by Miss McIntyre, the ECR was instrumental in setting up the annual burden survey as a potential warning system for the Commission on the consequences of excessive regulation.

She believes that the while the Commission’s first burden survey had been worthwhile, future ones must show more ambition.

She said: “We may create a simple piece of legislation at EU level – easy for businesses to understand and comply with. But when it’s transposed into national legislation, it doesn’t stay like that.

“Additional or completely unrelated elements are added to the legislation. The annual burden survey should identify these cases of gold-plating.

“By using the survey to bring transparency to the legislative process, we can ensure that legislation remains simple, clear and enforceable. And we can make sure that the EU is not blamed for unpopular legislation that has been in fact created by a Member State.”

Other proposals in the ECR policy paper include calling on the European Parliament’s research arm to produce to produce in-depth reports into the impact of its proposals, and a truly independent Regulatory Scrutiny Board with experts, not European Commission officials.