| Yesterday, the European Commission convened a “Simplification Roundtable” with representatives of European companies, NGOs, and unions. The goal of the meeting? To understand the “challenges” that “different parties” – especially businesses – face in their attempts to comply with EU law. “The effort to simplify is something that the President and the Commission consider a priority,” said a Commission spokesperson. The notion that the EU should reinvigorate its flagging economy by “simplifying” legislation is increasingly gaining traction among European officials. Just last week, the bloc’s executive formally pledged to implement “an unprecedented simplification effort” over the coming years. However, other euphemisms (or should that be EUphemisms?) abound for improving the bloc’s business environment. In particular, one frequently hears EU officials condemn regulatory barriers, bureaucratic burdens, and administrative obstacles confronting European firms. Policymakers also regularly stress the need to cut or reduce – or, in more exuberant moods, slash – red tape. Such terms are often combined to generate even more complex, and cumbersome, expressions: former Italian premier Enrico Letta, for instance, has suggested that the integration of the bloc’s single market is hampered by an “excessive regulatory burden and bureaucratic red tape”. Curiously, however, officials invariably refrain from describing their key policy objective in the most obvious way: deregulation.
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