RQ in France: situation in
January 2010
Regulatory quality in general
Interview
with Serge Lasvignes, secretaire général du Gouvernement: “is it possible to
increase the quality of legislation?” (April 2008)
Mr Lasvignes, the
head of the legislative office in the Prime minister’s administration, and chief
manager in government of the production of new texts, makes the case for greater
control over new regulation to curb “legislative inflation”. He stresses that
this would require a “cultural change” in the ministries, to achieve greater
quality and better enforcement of the law.
Impact assessment
Interview with Jean Maia,
director at the SGG : “Impact assessment: a
sea-change in the legal institutional make up of France” (September 2009)
Mr Maia has been one of the prime movers of a more stringent impact
assessment system, under preparation since 2004, which finally was believed to
need a change in the Constitution. The new system applies as of 1 September 2009
and includes innovations such as a more specific requirements for the
measurement of impacts, and the online publication of the assessment when the
draft law is tabled in Parliament.
Simplification
An article on the website of
the ministry of finance (les lois de
simplification) summarizes the approach followed from 2004 to 2007, which
produced three simplification laws drafted by the Government. Over that period,
several hundred individual legal measures were taken to simplify texts or
procedures, and repeal obsolete norms. From 2008, the main simplification drive
seems to have been transferred to Parliament, with two simplification omnibuses
adopted in 2009. How Parliament took up the challenge of “simplification and
clarification of law and streamlining of procedures” is best described in Mr. Etienne Blanc’s
report to the competent commission in the national assembly. Though the law
addresses complexity suffered by citizens, business, local authorities and
public services, the project is said to be driven by the need to restore
competitiveness of companies as well as simplify red tape for citizens.
Reduction of administrative burdens
From
2006 to 2008, the French government adopted and started to implement an
ambitious programme to cut red tape for companies by 25% by 2012, inspired by
the European Commission’s Action Programme. The full mapping of legislation
yielded a list of some 8,800 information obligations. The 1000 most onerous ones
were to be simplified within 4 years. In late 2008, when the programme had
apparently not yet been completed, the French authorities decided to concentrate
the simplification work on procedures identified by stakeholders as the most
onerous, hence a new effort to record the expectations of business and citizens.
See the Ensemble
Simplifions website.