Welcome page
I am pleased to present you the European Commission's conference, 'Cutting Red Tape for Europe', which will take place on Friday 20 June 2008 in Brussels.
The regulatory environment in which business operates influences its competitiveness, ability to grow and therefore to create jobs. By reducing red tape and overbearing bureaucracy, the Commission helps business people and entrepreneurs improve competitiveness, bearing in mind sustainable development and social rights. The Commission is committed to developing a better regulatory environment for business, one that is simple, understandable, effective and enforceable. To achieve this goal the Commission is currently conducting a major operation to reduce time that companies spend providing legal information to public authorities or private parties. Its Action Programme for reducing administrative burdens in the European Union aims at reducing 25% of this burden (permits, statistics, etc.) by 2012.
Businesses are directly affected by legislation and are therefore well placed to comment on how it could be made less burdensome for them while still respecting the policy objectives of the legislation. This is why the conference will engage business and other interested parties in a discussion about what the European Commission is doing to reduce paperwork.
Alongside the plenary sessions, the conference will feature four workshop sessions, bringing together policy makers, expert advisers and practitioners. Three workshops will address the possibilities for reducing administrative burdens in relation to specific policy areas (1. environment and transport; 2. company law; and 3. food safety & pharmaceuticals). The fourth workshop will discuss administrative burdens reduction in a more horizontal manner including the possibility of using e-government. Participation in the conference will provide you with a direct opportunity to highlight most costly administrative burdens.
The conference will take place at the European Parliament; rue Wiertz 60, 1047 Brussels on Friday 20 June 2008 from 9h30 to 17h00. We expect about 350 delegates to participate.
Vice-President Günter Verheugen
Commissioner for Enterprise and Industry
The Action Programme for Reducing Administrative Burdens in the European Union was endorsed by the Spring European Council in March 2007. The Council specifically agreed to the joint reduction target and invited Member States to "set national targets of comparable ambition". The Programme focuses on information obligations in thirteen selected priority areas including company law, employment relations, taxation/VAT, statistics, agriculture and transport. Its aims are to measure administrative burdens in these key sectors and identify information obligations that should be reduced.