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JURI hearing Dombrovskis simplificaiton * 3 Dec 2025 | Otter.ai

JURI hearing Dombrovskis simplificaiton * 3 Dec 2025

Better Europe1h

MEP Ilhan Kyuchyuk (Renew, Bulgaria)

00:02

Morning, morning. DIA, colleagues, please take your seats. Commissioner Dombroski, dia Valdez, it is my great pleasure to welcome you and I thank you for joining us today for this important exchange with the members of Legal Affairs Committee, the Commissioner for economy and productivity, implementation and simplification, your portfolio includes topics that are at very heart of our committee's remit. This includes, among others, ensuring that EU rules are implemented enforced swiftly and correctly, of course, strengthening and safeguarding a better war making process as well as simplification of legislation. That is why our committee places great value on establishing a productive dialog with you. We are here today to discuss a Commission's first Overview report on simplification, implementation and enforcement, covering the period from January to July 2025 which was published on 21st of October. I'm confident that today's exchange of views will contribute meaningfully to the reflection of our members, and we hope to those of the commission, following your initial presentation, I will open the floor to members for questions, and I suggest that we proceed with this in rounds, if there is a need for that. And without further ado, I would like to give you the floor for your presentation.

Valdis Dombrovskis (European Commission)

01:56

Yes, honorable chair, honorable members. First of all, thank you for this invitation to present the Commission's first Overview report on simplification, implementation and enforcement. This report, which was adopted by the college, together with a 2026 commission work program in October, is a key element of the Commission's reinforced annual reporting to European Parliament and the Council. In addition, each member of college has published their individual annual progress reports on implementation, sorry, simplification, implementation and enforcement under their respective portfolios. This is in line with political guidelines and mission letters, which task every member of the college with delivering far reaching invocation in his or her area of competence. Some of those individual reports have been already discussed with the responsible parliamentary committee and or council formation and every executive vice president and Commissioner stands ready to do so. Coming back to the overview report, it summarizes the main results of our work across those three areas, Nas simplification, implementation and enforcement in line with the President's political guidance as admission letters and our communication on implementation and simplification a simpler and faster Europe, the report presents the progress that has already been made and how simpler, clearer and better enforced rules are crucial pieces of the puzzle to Improve Europe's competitiveness and the functioning of our single market, we are placing a particular emphasis on engaging with the Parliament and the Council at all levels to deliver on these goals. I'm pleased with the increased attention by both institutions arguing on how EU roles work in practice and how they can be improved. Together with deepening our single market and closing the innovation gap, a simpler, lighter and faster regulatory framework is one of the key catalysts to enhance Europe's competitiveness in this context, sync, location, implementation and enforcement go hand in hand, and are key priorities for the commission, based also on a strong support from member states and this house, by removing regulatory bottlenecks and streamlining processes, the EU is enhancing the effectiveness of its measures. This helps accelerate the transition to a more resilient, dynamic and innovative economy better able to deliver on our economic, social and environmental goals, the commission has set ambitious targets for reducing administered burdens for businesses by at least 25% and by at least 35% for SMEs, this means reducing administrative burden. By 37 point 5 billion Euros by the end of this Commission's mandate, the commission is taking decisive steps towards this objective. So until July 2025 which is a cut off date for this overview report, we put forward six Omus packages for sustainability, potting, due diligence and taxonomy, investment rules, Common Agricultural Policy, chemicals, defense readiness and small mid cap enterprises, together with other simplification initiatives that the commission has tabled in a same period, these omnibus proposals are said to achieve 8.6 billion euros in reducing recurring administered costs for companies and administrations. These proposals also bring almost 4 billion euros in one of savings for businesses and administrations, the final savings will, however, depend on the outcome of legislative processes. In that context, we held called for eco legislators to consider, at least maintaining the overall level of ambition, paying due attention also to the impacts of substantial amendments. More recently, the commission has presented the digital omnibus, simplifying rules on data, cyber security and artificial intelligence, accompanied by the data union strategy and a proposal for European business wallets, further simulation. Proposals are planned for adoption shortly in the coming weeks, including the certain aspects of the environmental keys, automotive industry, food and feed safety and medical devices, as I mentioned earlier, the overview report was published on the same day as a 2026 commission's work program. More than half of the next year's initiatives will fake focus on making EU law simpler, clearer and easier to implement. Several omnibuses and other proposals will simplify rules across key sectors, including energy and energy product, legislation, taxation, defense, competitiveness and innovation and burdens for citizens. In addition, the commission is gradually stress testing the entire body of the EU Aki, including implementing rules. This testing aims to identify opportunities to codify on or consolidate legislation, remove duplications, address inconsistencies and further simplify EU rules through these tools, we are following on a strong calls for the European Parliament and council to deliver a far reaching simulation and ensure that our rules remain fit for purpose, to complement our efforts and improve The transparency of legislative outcomes, we are also calling on the European Parliament and the Council to assess the impact of substantial amendments in line with the inter institutional agreement on a better law making. To that end, we stand ready to work with both institutions, and we recently shared a first note suggesting these three possible building blocks to develop a common approach that should be practical and pragmatic, meaning fit to improve the information available to college later without unduly delaying legislative process. So Mr. Chair, honorable members, now I will turn to the topic of implementation for people and businesses to enjoy the benefits of our common rules and to have their rights protected. EU law must be implemented and applied fully and correctly everywhere in the EU to identify obstacles impeding a seamless implementation and to understand how to best support member states and stockholders. In this task, it is key to listen to those directly affected by the rules. To that end, we have taken several actions. The main novelty has been the launch of implementation dialogs as a new consultation tool. In the period covered by the report, the members of College held 28 implementation dialogs, engaging with over a few 550 diverse stakeholders, including industry representatives, SMEs, social partners, central regional and local authorities and civil society from all member states. Now, all information on the participants and conclusions from each dialog are available at the central repository at the Commission's website. Participants appreciate the format. It facilitates direct access to commissioners on a given topic in a. Ruptured manner, and allows them also to hear from each other. For the commissioners, the dialogs are proving helpful in identifying best practices, listening to evidence and views from the ground, and hearing suggestions on what could be improved. In addition, the dialogs are also serving to identify opportunities for simplification. In this regard, the dialogs are not replacing our standard consultation tools, including, notably the calls for evident and public consultations, but are providing to be useful complement to those more broadly, the Commission remains convinced that cooperation with the member states is the fastest way to improve implementation and address identified challenges. This is why we have strengths and implementation support, not only to ensure legal compliance, but to help meet targets, achieve objectives and deliver on our policies. For instance, the Commission introduced in April 2025 a transposition roadmap II two to improve information flows between the commission services and member states. These roadmaps are meant to help anticipate challenges in the transposition process. In only three months, this new feature was used by the commission services and a few member states who are testing the system for 21 directives. Another example is just transition platform, which is helping 32 regions and 14 member states most affected by our changing climate to providing them with advisory services on adaptation.

Valdis Dombrovskis (European Commission)

11:41

Having just said that cooperation with member states tends to be the fastest and most efficient course of action, I also want to make very clear that the Commission also believes in resolute enforcement action. The third section of the overview report sets out the major trends and figures as regards the Commission's enforcement actions and provides examples on positive outcomes achieved for people and businesses over the reporting period, the commission has pursued far reaching infringement procedures to protect not only Our single market but also our fundamental rights and other rights of citizens and consumers. In some instances, the court has already adjudicated, while in others, procedures before the court are ongoing. The information on enforcement in the overview report is complemented by a revamped online presence on the Europe website, live since April. It provides a wealth of information and data on infringement cases, pre infringement dialogs and transposition of directives, as well as interactive maps and customizable graphs. Pre infringement dialog, formerly known as EU pilot, is used by the commission when it's likely to lead to swifter solutions than a formal infringement procedure. It also helps to gather information about the existence of the breach of EU law. There, the figures speak for themselves. There has been an increase in the use of free infringement dialogs, and they have proven their efficiency with a resolution rate of 67% as regards infringement procedures, the Commission launched 300 700 373 new cases, of which 87% referred to an incomplete or incorrect transposition of directives. The Commission closed roughly the same number of infringement procedures, so 345 so the stock of ongoing cases has remained rather high, with around one and a half 1000 cases as regards court referrals, a growing trend of the previous years has continued, with 45 new referrals over the reporting period. Moreover, in 15 cases, the Commission requested financial sanctions, meaning in all the cases where the treaty provided so advancing the open cases remains a top priority for the commission, with special attention to long standing cases. All those figures and the examples of an overview report shows clearly that the commission is pursuing ambitious enforcement action.

Valdis Dombrovskis (European Commission)

14:43

So to conclude, honorable chair, honorable members. At the start of the year, we set out a vision for a simpler and faster Europe to significantly lighten the regulatory load for people, businesses and administrations. And to improve implementation of our policies, this implies a shift on how we approach our work and an extension we give to this task and how we allocate our resources, as outlined in the political guidelines and mission letters, each member of the college is responsible for delivering a simplification in his or her area. In turn, achieving our simplification objectives also required a shared commitment among all EU institutions, in particular the European Parliament and the Council as CO legislators. But a simplification alone is not enough. Our rules must also be properly implemented by member states. And when this does not happen, this leads to enforcement action. People and businesses will not judge us by the number of directives and regulations we adopt, but whether those rules deliver tangible benefits in their daily lives without creating a new unrest burning. So thank you very much. I look forward for hearing your use, and hope to count on your support to make this implication and implementation agenda a success. Thank you.

MEP Ilhan Kyuchyuk (Renew, Bulgaria)

16:14

Thank you very much, Commissioner for your presentation, and now I would like to open the floor for members, starting with the coordinators, and the first among them is Axel vos for two minutes,

MEP Axel Voss (EPP, Germany)

16:28

a bit longer than yesterday. Oh, thanks. So I try to be short. Thanks Commissioner dombowski for making this circle through the committees, and thanks for the exchange. And I would like to thank at first, the commission to try to reduce bureaucracy in this mandate. And of course, the omnibuses are everywhere. But sometimes I'm asking myself, if I'm looking to the first omnibus, why we do not have this broader picture? At first, we have these CSRD and CSDD, but why not including batteries, conflict minerals and so on. These are also little supply chains. What is influencing the whole economy? And second question would be, why or who is doing the broader picture in reducing bureaucracy. So we are focusing on small, small, little pillars in digital, some laws in these, CSRD, CSDD, some small pillars. But who has the control about how to do business in Europe in these days, and need a kind of a broader approach on these? And I'm asking myself, is this still in the pipeline, or do you have this in mind? Because we need probably to evaluate more than this, what is in the omnibuses and that we have this link and these kind of head of all of it, instead of focusing on some elements, this is helpful and is leading also to something. But is this all? So this is the question, thanks.

MEP Ilhan Kyuchyuk (Renew, Bulgaria)

18:40

Thank you for I say the group will be water voters.

Lara WOLTERS (S&D, NL)

18:44

Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner for being here. There are two things that I want to talk about this morning, both things I am extremely angry about, to be frank. The first is a piece of research by somo that came out yesterday, an NGO that has been investigating some of the goings on on omnibus one. And what I'm angry about is the insolent, brazen and some of the darkest lobbying, frankly, that I have ever seen in my time in Brussels on this omnibus by who, by us, oil and gas companies, Exxon Chevron, facilitated by Teneo consultancy. And this lobbying took forms that I think are completely outrageous, circumventing commission experts. It talked about neutralizing member states that would want to be unhelpful, encouraging extreme positions in the European Parliament, encouraging the rapporteur on this to side with the far right. And all of that had a result. All of that was extremely successful. Because what happened? Well, the Commission did exactly what these companies. In something called a competitiveness roundtable wanted. And what did they want? They wanted a weak proposal, of course, that would allow them to then dismantle omnibus one further and on that, the omnibus has written a the ombudsman. The European Ombudsman has written a report on what happened in the leading up to omnibus one, and the omnibus said, this is mal administration. The failings of the Commission in putting together these proposals taken together amount to Mal administration. So my first question for the commissioner is, of course, aside from, do you take the European ombudsman seriously? To which I hope the question is a resounding yes, but do you find Mal administration a a serious matter? Then, on that, on that report, I have given you advance notice of the questions that me and my S and D colleagues would like answers to the ombudsman disputed that the first omnibus was an urgency, which is, of course, the excuse that was used to then not consult, et cetera. And what she criticized was the attempts by the Commission to avoid and to limit public consultation impact assessments and inter service consultations. So I have questions on those. What are you going to do to make this right. What are you going to do to address maladministration and to make this right? And was it you who took the decision that this was an urgency, and if so, why is there no documentation on this? Were you responsible for what happened afterwards with this proposal, selecting the stakeholders that did get to input on this proposal was that documented and most importantly, again, what will you do to make this right? Thank you.

MEP Ilhan Kyuchyuk (Renew, Bulgaria)

21:54

Thank you. Next is Mr. Daniel jolimas,

Speaker 1

21:59

Thank you, Chair, Commissioner, thank you for being with us as the standing rapporteur on monitoring the application of EU law. First of all, I would like to express gratitude for your annual progress report, and I think your work on the second omnibus package, simplifying invest EU rules, also working with member states to streamline recovery and resilience facility procedures shows a clear commitment to reduce unnecessary administrative burdens, implementation dialogs you held on the Ralf and European statistics like likewise reflect a welcome effort to gather practical feedback from national authorities and stakeholders. Against this background, I would be grateful for your reflection on the following points which are central to our mandate on legislative quality, implementation and enforcement. So the first regarding the simplification agenda, while burden reduction is a welcome objective, I always underline that simplification of EU law must not be conflated with deregulation. Streamlining legal texts and procedures must improve clarity, legal certainty, administrative efficiency, while preserving essential policy objectives and protections. Therefore, what measure are you going to take to ensure that simplification does not slip into deregulation in your portfolio, and in which areas do you see the biggest risks second regarding the implementation dialogs, especially on recovery and resilience facility. How do you assess their functioning, particularly about ensuring a clear, transparent and inclusive process for identification and involvement of all stakeholders. Do you intend to strengthen the participation of regional and local authorities, whose involvement is crucial to improve the quality, legitimacy and effectiveness of implementation efforts and the last one regarding infringement procedures, the Commission's the commission usually treats referral to the court of justice as a last resort, and prefers dialog and cooperation, given that an area of Economic and Financial Affairs, there Are 10 ongoing infringement cases. How do you assess whether the current reliance on dialog and compliance promotion is sufficient to ensure timely and uniform compliance with European Union law? Thank you, Commissioner.

MEP Ilhan Kyuchyuk (Renew, Bulgaria)

24:35

Would you like to take the floor now to answer the questions, because we heard only three members, but many questions coming from them. And then we'll do the second round with Maria laus man, Angelica Niebuhr and Maria Sabo Dias Hofer. And then if there's a follow up question, I can allow members, of course,

Valdis Dombrovskis (European Commission)

24:55

yes, honorable members. Thank you very much for. These questions. So first of all, on on this question, on the broader picture. Of course, our simplification agenda fits into broader picture because there are substantial competitiveness challenges which we are facing in European economy, as also well recorded in Draghi and LETTER reports, and correspondingly, we need to work address competitiveness and productivity issues in our economy. And that's why one of the first initiatives of this European Commission was competitiveness compass, where we outlined the factors affecting the competitiveness and measures to to deal with all those issues, and it's very broad set of issues this. This concerns both the innovation gap, which we need to close just investing more in research and innovation to compare with other major economies. That refers to questions of relatively high energy prices, that reports to removing barriers within our single market, and that also refers to reducing the atmosphere burden. So simplification, in a sense, is one of the building blocks in this broader Competitiveness Agenda. And indeed, as you rightly noted, we are basically following the sectoral approach for this simplification looking at different sectors. And indeed, as I was mentioning, each commissioner is dealing with those issues within their areas of competence. But we do have this overall coordination, and we have undertaken that stress testing of entire EU a key so you mentioned some specific pieces of legislation. While we will be doing this stress testing, it will allow us to identify whether some simplification and action is needed also, as regards those different piece of legislation, it's worth noting that this is a work we are doing for the entire mandate, so there's still lots of work ahead of us as regards all this simplification. Then on a question on stakeholders engagement, which stakeholders are listened to in in a context of our simplification agenda, I would say this is a very, very broad set of stakeholders, and their different views and inputs are taken into account. You mentioned specifically the question regarding the consultations on omnibus one and and inputs from various stakeholders leading in in this and there, it has to be said that it has been a very long and broad process of consultations. It started, actually with Commission's call for evidence on the rationalization of reporting requirements, which was launched already in 2023 as there are two hybrid events in 2024 dedicated to certain aspects of CSR, the we had been receiving various inputs, letters, open letters, policy papers and So on and so forth for very broad range of stakeholders, we organize a roundtable, which you specifically mentioned, where selection of stakeholders was done on a best effort basis, as with every such Workshop and event, with the aim of having balanced representation at different sectors and countries of origin and different types of stakeholders. And in preparation of selection of this stakeholders, we were licensing with teams of commissioners, McGrath and Albuquerque, who were also representing the commission in this particular event, and all the commissioners engaged in preparation of this omnibus, one, including myself, including commissioners mag Albuquerque, including Commissioner hoevestra As regards cbam, were also having separate meetings with with various stakeholders. So in a sense, we had a very broad input on from every possible angle on, specifically you mentioned interest of you. US companies as regards omnibus one, I would highlight that actually, some of the asks of us companies and US administration has to be said, are not taken on board in our proposal. For example, they still continue to complain about extraterreality of our provisions, as regards CSDD, for example, and that we're seeking exemption, which is not reflected in European Commission's proposal. Then, as regards ombudsun report and recommendations, obviously, we take it very seriously, and we acknowledge that Ombudsman has found room to improve certain procedural aspects as how we document the urgency of the file and any delegations from better regulation guidelines and how it's all formally decided and documented, and in this case, following these findings, in line with article 228 one of the treaty made for a cease where the ombudsman establishes an instant of Mal administration, we shall refer to the matter as a matter to the institution, body, office or agency concerned, which shall have a period of three months to which inform him of its use. The commission is currently preparing its reply in line with the treaty, and in that reply, we plan to state whether the commission has implemented or intends to implement the recommendations of the ombudswoman, and if so high. So currently we are in a process of preparation of this response, and that response reply will be subject to the college decision. Then on the question, broader question on simplification versus deregulation, this is something which we had been outlining from the very beginning that our aim is to simplify, not to deregulate. So we are not moving away from our high social or environmental standards. We are not moving away from the goals of the European Green Deal and targets of the European Green Deal, we are looking how to reach our policy goals in a simpler, more streamlined and less costly way, and that is approach which holds you mentioned specifically implementation dialogs as regards recovery and resilience facility. Indeed, we had two implementation dialogs as regards recovery resilience facility, one exactly focusing on on the feedback from stakeholders or beneficiaries from the recovery and Resilience Fund. And in that implementation dialog, I would say regional and local authorities were strongly represented, as they are indeed substantial beneficiaries on from from recovery and resilience facility, and obviously, when we were, for example, now preparing, say, proposal for next multi annual financial framework. As you know, we propose this broader fund with a national envelope, which, similarly, like RF, will be performance based instrument. Even so, we take strong input from cohesion policy on this at its shared management partnership principle, territorial focus and one of the lessons indeed, which we have taken on board in our proposal is stronger involvement of regional and local authorities in all stages, including in preparation of those plans with a national envelope. So that's something where we clearly agree. Then on, on the question of infringement. Well, I was, as I was mentioning, we are not

Valdis Dombrovskis (European Commission)

34:47

hesitating to pursue infringements if we see that the matter is not being resolved and also refers the cases to the court and in as our also first annual Overview Report shows. Jos, actually we have increased referrals to the courts that tend this overall increasing. And in any case, as I was mentioning, of course, initially, we try with a dialog with member states and those pre infringement dialogs have a success rate of 67 or percent. And all in all, when we are engaging in member states, in 95% of infringement cases, member states address breaches of EU law before the case has to be taken to the EU Court of Justice, and also as regards the average handling time of infringement cases, indeed, we do not allow them to drag endlessly. So the average handling time of infringement case over the last years has been slightly over two years. And all in all, we had been able to reduce the number of open infringement cases from around or almost 2000 in 2023 to around or under one, one and a half 1000 now. Thank you.

MEP Ilhan Kyuchyuk (Renew, Bulgaria)

36:25

Thank you very much for your answers. Dia Commissioner, and let's continue with the second round. And the first speaker will be Maria Wolfman, yeah.

Speaker 2

36:35

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Speaker 3

38:21

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Speaker 3

40:06

Damgen, who's the oft new au guns, Gunnar small answer, name, an even on belongein, next is Maria

MEP Ilhan Kyuchyuk (Renew, Bulgaria)

40:50

Saba dia hover.

Unknown Speaker

40:54

I'm going to speak in Spanish,

Speaker 4

41:01

raciente, with the presidente. Don Bruce keys, gracias por la presentacion del Overview report as mere 20 cinco en esta committee se most con especial attention dia simplification, in particular a traves de lo nivolus. Simplification para nuestro Grupo is la mayor Garcia de calidad, Eva either when a technical, normative, emotional, comprehensive, le applicable irrespective. OSA Gunnar, principio de su siegreda, la simplification no es una accessorio. Es un punto de partida valor Ramos, el esfuerzo que la commission esta realizando para van Sir, mas rapido Pedro, jurista, sabemos que la completa muy complicidad muchas veces surgen la fase NAS on, el diver gentes practicas, administrativa, distintas en definitiva, fragmentation, juridica como Preve la commission, referencia lacional, para que la simplification tenga effecto reales en toda la unio termino con una reflections over Espana para que la simplification product reales necesito un entorno de plana, seguridad juridica, so lamentablemente, no cure mi pas donde el KOVA no genera inceptitum re Norma Eva Cristiano, Independencia judicial y Alterra las Pascal economico por interest control, YON dia el gobierno espanoles, un EJ employ de lo que la union no puede permitirse la falta seguridad juridica en algunos estados miembros si geminando la competitividad nuestra economia. Gracias.

MEP Ilhan Kyuchyuk (Renew, Bulgaria)

43:01

Thank you very much. I think we have couple of more minutes for follow up questions or interventions. Axio, one minute for follow up.

MEP Axel Voss (EPP, Germany)

43:11

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MEP Ilhan Kyuchyuk (Renew, Bulgaria)

45:34

Thank you, Mr. Vos was but not least will be Saturday Passy,

Speaker 5

45:40

thank you, Chairman. Today we have many important, structured dialogs. So I excuse myself to have been too late as I had to grill Commissioner Ribera on competition policy. So I'm in the grilling spirit here. And in that regard, I would like to follow up on the question asked by Laura Walters, why I can see the potential answer to say, well, we give an answer to the ombudsman, and let's take it from there, from perspective of the European Parliament, I think this is not sufficient, particularly if we speak about maladministration, and in our task of holding the European Commission to account, I would like to have a bit more of an answer how you intend to address the allegation of the maladministration. And that may be a bit more precise, since if you look at this particular file, we see that the Commission argues to deviate from its better regulation standards by reference to the concept of urgency, which in itself is a concept that is rather blurry. Let me put it like this, at best, and whether, then, therefore, the Commission intends to give some shape to urgency, so that we have clear criteria by which we can assess whether urgency is actually at stake, or whether it's just in order to meet headlines made by the Commission president, without reflecting what that actually means in practical legislation. Second question, in terms of criteria applied in better regulation. We do have see here a certain bias towards economic criteria, whereas we see that legislation at times has to be taken Beck if societal costs become larger than economic costs, there are a couple of examples we know from every member state. And therefore my question in which way you intend to include societal costs when making an evaluation on on impacts in the context of better regulation, thank you.

MEP Ilhan Kyuchyuk (Renew, Bulgaria)

47:29

Thank you, Commissioner. I think we have good 10 minutes for answer

Valdis Dombrovskis (European Commission)

47:39

yes. So thank you very much for those questions. So first on the questions related on how to move forward with strengthening the competitiveness of our economy, are we moving fast enough in areas like removal of barriers in a single market, as indeed highlighted in Drago report, deepens the integration of capital markets. Of course, as European Commission, our preferred method is a community method to move forward as EU 27 talking about capital markets. We just recently, recently, yesterday, came with a new capital markets package, how how to move forward and how, actually, exactly, to reduce market fragmentation in capital markets with exactly this aim. That said, yes, there had been discussions among Member States on moving forward with the coalitions of willing. Such kind of tool exists also with enhanced cooperation. If 11 member states agree to do something closer together, the commission has to assist this work, also, this possibility exists, and we are open to discuss if there is initiative from member states on enhanced cooperation, or this and other area. But as I was saying, of course, our preferred option is community method and moving forward with with 27 member states, then there's a question on a holistic approach to our simplification agenda. I was already, in a sense, outlining in the first round of questions that well, we need to have this holistic approach to our competitor our simplification agenda is fitting into broader Competitiveness Agenda. It's actually one of the building blocks of this core. Competitiveness Agenda, and so it's to be seen in this context, and also that we are performing the stress testing Well, gradually performing the stress testing of entire European Aki. Correspondingly, we will be looking over the entire EU legislative body. And that will allow us to also streamline things, eliminating consistencies, overlaps, contradictions and and the work which will be undertaking during entire commissions. Mandate, then, as a specific question you were asking, how this simplification work also simplification of requirements for SMEs would reflect on access to funding and access to credit for SMEs, and indeed, this has been one area of focus In our proposal to address so called trickle down effect. So on one hand, we have SMEs exempted from more heavy reporting requirements. On other hand, often it's either banks which would provide financing or larger companies in value chains anyway, request information from SMEs according to their requirements, because they need it for their own reporting. And SMEs are anyways and subjected to this heavy reporting requirements. And so how we propose to address this is basically we prohibit this practice of trickling down reporting requirements at the same time also providing explanation to large companies to banks, how the simplified information which they are getting from SMEs is sufficient for their own reporting because that is a question which, which we obviously need to answer for for larger companies, including banks, because they have the reporting obligations if SMEs report according to simplified standards, how it is sufficient for their reporting requirements and and We're providing this clarity, so we hope that that will help actually, then eventually SMEs also with access to to funding without facing excessive reporting requirements. Then, okay, you raised very specific question on public enterprises not falling under, say, sma exemption or small mid caps exemption, even though they have less than 750 employees. I think that's, that's a valid question where we need to to look into, I don't have now already made answer to this specific point you made. But I think it's indeed a point which we need to look and to see what, what can be done in this area. Then on, the question on, on, well, making progress on simplification agenda without compromising quality on respect for the subsidiary principle that's obviously all, all the issues which we need to keep in mind when we are advancing our agenda, because obviously we want to have informed decision making and good quality proposals. Question on coherence in application and implementation. Indeed, that's also very much a part of our simplification agenda, because we see that inconsistent application of EU law leads to fragmentation in a single market, and that's something which we want to avoid. So on one hand, it's reflected already for a number of years in a choice of legislative instruments which we are taking that we are relying now more on regulations as compared to directives, and correspondingly, those are directly applicable because lots of inconsistencies comes through transposition of directives. Where applicable. We are using maximum harmonization directives instead of minimum harmonization directives, we are assisting more member states in transposition of directives, with transposition road maps and things like this, to ensure this consistency, and also working with member states as regards gold plan. Was okay, primarily, it's in member states hands to address gold plating. But as we understand, again, different member states gold plating or not in different ways, again, leads to inconsistency. So that's all very much on our on our agenda well, on this question, on bigger picture, on the need for more speed and flexibility in decision making, being able to react on specific problems, to address them, in a in a in a proper and swift way. Well indeed, I fully agree, and we need to work on having both procedural framework and well legislation which allows for this agility and flexibility, something which we need to prevent. Of course, there is always a question that with this, we are not losing the speed of of our action. In any case, in a second quarter of next year, we are planning review of our also better regulation framework, which would provide us with opportunity to look, also, in a sense, how we can improve our ability to react to the specific situations in a quick and agile way. Also when we are preparing as a legislation, I would highlight also more systemic use of things like competitiveness test, SME test, so that we really have full information on on what what we are doing, also in terms of competitiveness and how it affects our companies. Then moving to to the question of Ombudsman's recommendations and findings? Well, first of all, we obviously take it very seriously.

Valdis Dombrovskis (European Commission)

57:23

Okay, procedurally, so when there is a finding of or when ombudsman, European ombudsman, establishes instance of Mal administration. So the article 228 one of the treaty for a cease that where the ombudsman establishes an instance of maltenstration, he shall refer the matter to the institution, body, officer, agency concerned, which shall have a period of three months in which to inform him of its views. And that's exactly what the commissioner right now is doing, the commission is preparing the response, and in that response, we plan to state whether the commission has implemented or intends to implement, as a recommendation of ombudswoman, and if so, how this response is in preparation, and it will be subject to the college decision. More generally, yes, we see scope of improvement in terms of following up ombudswoman's recommendations, in a sense of having more clear criteria what constitutes urgency, more formalized procedure, and also documentation and record picking requirements as regards deciding delegations and allowing for the urgency procedures and So, so and therefore, we will be ready to to to work on this on a constructive way, as Ombudsman's recommendation itself underlines that the review of our better regulation framework could be a good opportunity to actually do so, and as I was saying, we are planning it for a second quarter of next year on the impact assessments. Well, impact assessments cover all relevant aspects of the legislative proposal. Also, as you mentioned, broader societal or social or environmental, or whatever relevant impacts for this, for each specific piece of legislation. And that has not changed. In a sense, we continue with this probably what is a. Element of novelty is that we are putting more emphasis and insist on more consistent application, also of competitiveness and SME checks. Thank you.

MEP Ilhan Kyuchyuk (Renew, Bulgaria)

01:00:11

Thank you very much. We'll finish exactly on time indeed. I would like to thank you once again for your contribution today. I think was good and valuable discussion for our members, and look forward to continuing our dialog in the future. Thank you, Jon, you.

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