Fit for Future Platform made significant contributions to simplifying and modernising EU law over its four-year mandate

This article is brought to you in association with the European Commission.

Today, the Commission’s Fit for Future Platform, a high-level expert group composed of stakeholders and representatives of all Member States, held its final plenary meeting under its current mandate.

The Platform consists of a high-level expert group of national, regional and local authorities, civil society organisations, businesses and members of the RegHub network of the Committee of the Regions. It was set up in 2020 to complement the Commission’s regulatory simplification work.

Over the course of its four-year mandate, the Platform has adopted 41 opinions, containing some 260 specific suggestions to help the European Commission to simplify and modernise EU laws and to reduce related unnecessary burdens for citizens and businesses.

Achievements of the Fit for Future Platform in 2024

In 2024, the Platform put forward suggestions on simplifying and streamlining EU legislation, reducing regulatory burdens, notably on reporting requirements, further digitalisation, better enforcement and implement ability of EU laws and programmes.

The opinions on organic production and labelling of organic products and on unfair trading practices in the food supply chain proposed several suggestions to streamline the complex acquis, eliminate double reporting and bring in more transparency, clarity and legal certainty.

Digitalisation potential was raised in various opinions but was most prominent in the opinion on QR codes on products. Such QR codes would address horizontal aspects and guiding principles related to labelling requirements.

The Platform continued to play an important role in helping the Commission to deliver on the objective of reducing burden coming from reporting obligations by 25%. In 2024, it produced 3 opinions on this topic:

• Automated sustainability reporting: suggesting improvements in the quality, accessibility and exchange of data needed to report on sustainability;
• Actions and methodology to avoid the build-up of unnecessary reporting obligations: suggesting horizontal ideas to avoid that the reporting burdens keep increasing and to help stakeholders comply with them efficiently;
• Sustainable Finance Disclosures Regulation: suggesting ways to make financial disclosure less burdensome and more meaningful.

The Platform also provided substantial evidence and valuable insights to the evaluations of several European funds, including the implementation of the European Social Fund Plus, the European Regional Development Fund, the Just Transition Fund and the Cohesion Fund.

Background

Over its four-year mandate, the Platform has greatly contributed to making EU laws fit for the future helping increase coherence and transparency and improve implementation and enforcement. Through its recommendations, the Platform contributed to many Commission initiatives like, amongst others, the Late Payments Directive, the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, the Gigabit Infrastructure Act, the Interoperable Europe Act, the Banking Union package and the Listing Act, and the VAT in the Digital Age proposal.

For more information

Factsheet

Political Priorities of the 2019-2024 von der Leyen Commission

Fit for Future Platform

The Better Regulation agenda

REFIT – Making EU law simpler, less costly and future proof

REFIT Scoreboard

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