RegWatchEurope (RWE) Board meeting (3rd June)
This summary covers the latest regular Board meeting of the RWE network
RegWatchEurope is a network of independent regulatory scrutiny bodies that works together to exchange best practice, innovative ideas and emerging methodological approaches. A mixture of European Union and non-European members, it is a core component of the RPC’s international engagement work and meets regularly at both board and technical/secretariat levels.
This June board meeting was originally to be a larger engagement in Berlin, including a technical workshop to exchange best practice in several areas of regulatory scrutiny. It was scaled down given the complications and disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. However, Board members including our interim chair Stephen Gibson came together on WebEx and a very fruitful planning discussion was had.
RWE members, with Germany in the chair, heard a presentation from colleagues of the Danish Business Regulation Forum as part of their arrangements for joining the network. This included their work on “neighbour check”, which assesses how Denmark’s neighbours implement EU legislation. Digital solutions to questions of regulatory burden were also discussed, such as businesses inputting their issues directly to government.
RWE members further discussed the conclusions of various workshops on areas including ex-post evaluations held in recent months, and agreed to hold a further workshop in September on the issues of proportionality in evidence and analysis and stakeholder engagement. The different ways in which Covid-19 has affected scrutiny across Europe were also compared and contrasted.
The meeting also included a session with representatives from the European Commission’s Regulatory Scrutiny Board, who updated participants on their work expanding scrutiny of impact assessments in the UK style, and the lessons learned from this process.