European Commission’s plans will lead to worse regulations
EDRi is deeply concerned that the European Commission’s current plans to amend the Better Regulation framework will lead to worse lawmaking, not better. In its submission to the Commission, EDRi shares recommendations to ensure balanced representation, fairness, transparency, and meaningful safeguards in EU lawmaking.
Better Regulation should mean better lawmaking
Good lawmaking is a cornerstone of democracy and fundamental rights. It depends on balanced representation, fairness, transparency, and meaningful safeguards that constrain executive power (and corporate pressure). Any reform of the Better Regulation rules should strengthen these principles. Instead, the direction signalled by the Commission’s January 2026 call for evidence appears to weaken them.
In practice, the Better Regulation framework risks being transformed from a set of democratic safeguards into a toolbox that facilitates procedural derogations. Rather than improving the quality of EU lawmaking, the emerging approach normalises legislative shortcuts, reduces scrutiny, and concentrates discretion within the executive. This shift has direct consequences for democratic accountability and the protection of fundamental rights. Against the backdrop of the Commission’s far-reaching deregulation and “simplification” agenda, there is a serious risk that an upcoming Communication on Better Regulation will entrench a rapid and significant backsliding in good lawmaking standards.
While improving lawmaking to better serve the public is a legitimate and necessary goal, this is not what the Commission appears to be pursuing. Breaches of the Commission’s own Better Regulation rules are not new, but the current agenda has gone further: sidelining civil society, entrenching the influence of private interests and the ultra-wealthy, relying on vague and unjustified claims of urgency to bypass normal procedures, and pressuring co-legislators to do the same, concerns documented in a recent civil society open letter.
In our submission to the call for evidence, we highlight three core areas of concern. First, we provide concrete examples where the Commission failed to meet its own requirements on Impact Assessments, weakening the lawmaking process. We urge the Commission to produce Impact Assessments consistently.
Second, we warn against codifying politicised “urgency” as a way to bypass democratic principles. We call on the Commission not to introduce a new urgency process without first conducting an Impact Assessment and fully following the Ombudsperson’s recommendations.
Third, we document how past consultations and feedback mechanisms have limited or excluded civil society and individuals, and we offer practical recommendations to improve them.
EU lawmaking must be inclusive, rights-respecting, and focused on the public interest. We hope that our submission contributes to restoring Better Regulation as a framework that genuinely strengthens democracy, rather than one that accelerates its erosion.