The lawmaking process is at the heart of EU’s twofold challenge, simultaneously technical and political: what transformations does the European lawmaking process need to improve the quality of regulation and strengthen EU’s legitimacy?
On the technical point of view, the improvement of the lawmaking process can be an answer to the tremendous challenge of applying the same legislation to 28 countries. What is a good regulation according to the Commission? How to organize a sustainable system of lawmaking at such level? What tools are put in place to achieve it? Impact assessments and involvement of stakeholders appear as prominent requirements to produce a modern high-quality legislation.
On the political point of view, the promotion of Better Regulation can be a way for the Commission, the driving force of the EU, to strengthen its legitimacy by taking different roads from the classic forms of national democracies' electoral legitimacy: a procedural legitimacy, based on inclusion of the plurality of opinions, transparency, consultation of stakeholders, expertise, assessment, efficiency. Recalling the distinction between input and output legitimacy (F. Scharpf, 1999), adding the concept of throughput legitimacy (V. Schmidt, 2010), and latest works of Rosanvallon (Democratic legitimacy. Impartiality, reflexivity, proximity, 2011), we will see what particular types of legitimacy the Commission can rely on through Better Regulation programs, and how efficient these could be on this side of the issue.
