This working paper provides a legal analysis of the inclusion of social and environmental clauses in the modernisation of the EU's public procurement directives. It focuses in particular on Directive 2014/24/EU and evaluates the measures and provisions dealing with the obligation to comply with...

This Working Paper provides a clear but critical assessment of the EU's process of simplification and qualitative improvement of the 'acquis', a process originally known as 'Better Law-making', subsequently as 'Smart regulation' and, in its latest incarnation, as 'Regulatory Fitness and...

The issue of burden and cost reduction, both regulatory and administrative, has become a leitmotif that regularly appears at the table of the European Council.In this respect, the "one in, one out" regulatory compensation system, which consists of replacing any new cost linked to a legislative...

This Working Paper aims to shed light on the machinations behind recent developments regarding the Better Regulation agenda. How should we interpret the Commission’s insistence on relentlessly attacking its own legislation? Why does it constantly refer to the costs, yet never once mention the...

This Working Paper provides a critical analysis of the EU Commission's proposals to modernise and simplify its rules on public procurement. The author of the paper, Eric Van den Abeele, looks at the political background and reasons behind the EU's revision of its public procurement directives....

Policy recommendationsThe costs and burdens that go hand-in-hand with legislation (taxes and charges, monitoring and evaluation reports, statistics, labelling, etc.) are an intrinsic part of the democratic system. If they are abolished, this should be on the basis of a case-by-case assessment,...

The aim of this research paper is to review the recent emergence on the European scene of the concept of open strategic autonomy and the consequences it may have for EU action. Originally stemming from the language of the common foreign and security policy (CFSP) and the common security and...