This step is about mapping the relevant EU legal framework which is related to the bottleneck. Often several EU directives or regulations are complementary, and together regulate a specific sector or policy area. Bottlenecks are therefore not always related to one particular regulation or directive. This aspect of sets of legislation regulating one policy area is also reflected in the European Commission’s evaluation method called Fitness Checks.
With Fitness Checks, the Commission evaluates an entire set of legislation instead of evaluating individual regulations or directives separately.
A better regulation proposal that takes into account all relevant EU legislation would paint a complete picture of the bottleneck and would, therefore, be more likely to yield a potential follow-up.
Identifying EU legal framework
Mapping the EU legal framework can start by listing the identified EU regulation or directive that would seem to be the principal cause of the perceived issue. It is possible that during the broad brainstorm other related EU legislation has already been identified. If that is not the case, it would be advisable to consult the website of the responsible EC Directorate-General (DG) of the policy area in question. Often, the website of an individual DG gives an overview of how a policy area is legislated by the EU and which legislation is in play for specific issues in the policy area.
European Commissioners are supported by departments called Directorates-General (DGs). Most of these departments are policy DGs, which are responsible for specific policy areas. For example, DG COMP is responsible for competition policy and DG REGIO is responsible for regional and urban policy.
How to map
It is advisable to list the identified EU legislation related to the bottleneck in such a way that it gives a clear overview of which and in what way EU legislation is related to or the cause of the bottleneck. If possible, such an overview can also be included in the previously drawn up framework table to get a sense of all EU legislation related to all the collected bottlenecks in the focus group sessions.
An example of such an overview is provided below. This overview is also available as a blank template document which you can use in listing the related EU legislation of your bottlenecks.
To do: List identified pieces of EU legislation in the mapping exercise.