Antitrust and regulation in the European Union: selected topics

With the Communication on Smart Regulation issued in October 2010, the European Commission tried to foster a better management of the whole policy cycle. According to that Communication, amending policy proposals must be preceded by an ex post assessment of the current situation, allowing ―closing the policy cycle‖. This paper tries to answer the question whether the EU Impact Assessments System is fit to steer and close the policy cycle, and what is the relation between ex ante IA and ex post evaluations ―on the ground‖ so far. This is done via a macro and micro analysis, based on scorecard approach and three case studies, comparing the EU IA system performance with a theoretical benchmark derived from the EU policy document and process. The paper concludes that the EU Impact Assessment system, as it is currently designed and implemented, it is not yet fit to steer and close the policy cycle. To achieve this goal, all the analytical and empirical layers of the policy cycle should be fully dealt with since the ex ante phase.