The Commission launched the Fit for Future Platform by Commission decision in May 2020. It is the successor of the REFIT Platform, which supported the Commission’s efforts to improve EU legislation until 2019. The Fit for Future Platform will help the Commission simplify existing EU legislation and reduce the administrative burden for EU citizens and businesses. The Platform will do so by advising the Commission on existing bottlenecks in EU legislation. In addition, the Platform will contribute to the future-proofing of EU legislation, as the EU should be able to react quickly to new trends and challenges.

The structure of the Platform

The Commission’s Vice-President for Interinstitutional Relations and Foresight, Maroš Šefčovič, chairs the Platform. It exists of two groups:

• A stakeholder group, existing of 19 representatives of businesses, civil organisations, and individuals with practical expertise in Union policy areas. Also, three representatives of the European Social and Economic Committee take part.
• A government group, consisting of representatives from national, regional and local authorities from all EU countries, and the Committee of the Regions (CoR).

The interests of social partners, small and large businesses, and consumer, health and environmental organisations, including non-governmental organisations, are represented in the Platform. Furthermore, the SME Envoy network will provide input and will be represented in the plenary meetings of the Platform.

Additionally, the second generation of Regional Hubs, called RegHub 2.0, has also been incorporated into the Fit for Future Platform structure. The RegHub Platform is established by the Committee of the Regions (CoR). It facilitates the involvement and input of local and regional authorities within the Fit for Future Platform.

The submissions of suggestions for the Platform

The Fit for Future Platform aims to ensure that EU legislation is predictable and unambiguous. All stakeholders can contribute ideas on simplification and burden reduction through the “Have Your Say – Simplify!“-portal. The suggestions can be sent throughout the year. The Platform strives to reply to all submissions. The Fit for Future Platform will look at the submitted suggestions and may include them in its opinions and recommendations to the Commission. One can find all submitted suggestions on this webpage.

Fit for Future work programme

To ensure that the Fit for Future Platform produces its work valuable and timely, it works based on an annual work programme. The work programme is drawn up by the Platform, based on a proposal from and in accordance with the Commission. The work programme is based on input from the SME Envoys Network, Member States, the Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions and RegHub 2.0 on the most burdensome EU legislation. Furthermore, the annual work programme will also be based on issues identified in evaluations and fitness checks by the Commission.

In the 2021 work programme, the Fit for Future Platform has selected 15 initiatives to issue opinions on. The selected initiatives cover different policy areas, such as competition, finance and health. For each topic, the Platform will gather data, evidence and input on the potential for simplifying and reducing unnecessary costs before issuing an opinion to the Commission. The Commission will take the advice of the Platform into account when reviewing and assessing the impact of EU legislation.

In November 2020, Commission Vice-President Šefčovič mentioned that the annual Fit for Future work programme should closely align with the Commission work programme. Therefore, 11 of the 15 selected initiatives within the 2021 work programme of the Fit for Future Platform are based on initiatives that the Commission has selected for evaluation, revision or fitness check in the Commission work programme for 2021.