Better public consultations

The affected EU-Regulation

According to the EU Treaty, the EU Commission must carry out public consultations within the Union's action areas to ensure that the Union's decisions are coherent and transparent.
 

The affected Danish regulation

All Danish legislation that implements adopted EU legislation forwarded by the EU Commission in the period 2024-2029.
 

Reasoning behind the recommendation

The Commission’s services continue to initiate public consultations, including Questionnaires, that are long and complex or 'steer' the answers towards a certain result. In addition, there is uncertainty among the stakeholders concerning to which extent feedback is used in the following impact assessment and the final legislative proposal.
 

Expected consequences for industry and commerce

The consultation processes are an important part of the agenda for Better Regulation, in which external stakeholders, such as businesses, NGO’s and individual citizens gain an insight into the EU's decision process as well as the opportunity to provide relevant input. A simpler and better process will therefore remove a burden for both businesses and civil society organisations. At the same time, better public consultations are expected to lead to better legislation.
 

Certain considerations

It is important to emphasise the need to respect the special procedures concerning social and labour market matters, which is established in TEU articles 154 and 155. It is established that social issues must follow a special consultation process that involves social partners, and this cannot be replaced by public consultations.
 

Current Danish efforts 

The forum is not aware of any Danish efforts at EU level.

The Danish Business Regulation Forum recommends that the EU Commission, works to ensure an improvement in stakeholder consultation and how feedback is used.

It is recommended that the Commission pays special attention to the following aspects:

• Improving the design of the questionnaires. The questionnaires should not be too long, and they should allow for open-ended answers and comments. Questions should be simple and clear. Finally, it should be possible to answer all questions in the questionnaire regardless of the nature of the stakeholders. The questions must appear neutral and do not reflect the impression that the Commission already has decided which direction they want to go.
   
• The consultation forms should be downloadable and in a format that can be edited and there should always be an option to upload position papers associated with the consultation.
   
• Efforts should be made to ensure that RSB^[2] to a greater extent links public consultations and impact assessments.

Many consultations from the Commission are also directed at citizens in EU countries. This helps to minimize the gap between on the one hand, what is perceived as the "Brussels bubble" and on the other hand, the European citizens. However, several of the consultations include questions, which are only aimed at citizens, and in this connection relevant stakeholders do not have the opportunity to provide input of quality to the questions. The spotlight must therefore be on how relevant stakeholders, including umbrella organizations, can be better included in these consultations. In this regard, the Danish Business Regulation Forum recommends that it is taken into consideration, that answers given by umbrella organizations, who represents a large number of companies, consumers or organizations, should weigh more heavily than answers of individuals. It is further recommended that the Commission prepare two sets of consultations which are specifically aimed at citizens or experts (in cases where both groups should be consulted).

• There should be sufficient time to respond to public consultations and they should not be carried out within holiday periods (especially July-August and the second half of December). The four to twelve week period, regarding consultations on EU legislation and implementation acts should be extended. Regarding implementation acts, there should be sufficient time for the Commission to consider changes before voting in the relevant committee.
   
• The EU institutions should use the feedback received from the consultation, and it should be explained during the further legislative process how the feedback is used in the final proposal.
   
• Public consultations are an important instrument, but they must always be supplemented by data. Feedback from the public consultations should not constitute the only relevant background for legislative proposals since the responses can be subjective. Greater focus must therefore be placed on the difference between statements given by non-experts, statements given by experts and factually validated information.

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^{[2] The Regulatory Scrutiny Board (RSB) is a body under the Commission that conducts quality control and provides support in connection with the Commission impact analyzes and evaluations of EU legislation. The committee reviews and makes statements and makes recommendations for all the Commission's drafted impact assessments, comprehensive evaluations and quality checks of current legislation.}

Regeringen tiltræder anbefalingen. Regeringen vil arbejde for at Kommissionen kontinuerligt forbedrer sine høringsprocesser, herunder fokuserer på at tage højde for høringssvar og anvende den feedback, som Kommissionen får ifm. konsultationer i konsekvensvurderinger og lovforslag.