Regulatory Simplification in Europe: New Wine in Old Bottles?

Lately a consensus has emerged that the proliferation of EU regulation exacts a toll on the competitiveness of industries, and the mood in Brussels has shifted towards less regulation or rather regulatory simplification across a range of sectors from digital to corporate due diligence. What lessons can we learn from prior efforts at simplification? In thinking about the shift in discourse from the ‘Brussels’ effect to the ‘simplification’ effect, there are few analyses of the tools and methods of simplification or the lessons learnt from previous experience. This paper is an initial mapping effort to address these questions drawing on cross-national as well as historical experiences.