The European Commission has announced an action programme to cut 25% of red tape for businesses by 2012.
The programme focuses on administrative obligations in 13 priority areas including company law, employment relations, taxation/VAT, statistics, agriculture and transport.
The aims of the programme, according to the Commission, are to measure the cost of the administrative burdens in these sectors and submit proposals to remove the unnecessary burdens.
Ten reduction measures have already been identified for fast track action by the Commission which will be decided upon at the March Spring Council.
“Businesses should be free to spend their time producing and innovating – not filling in forms or reporting in overly bureaucratic ways,” said Günter Verheugen, commission vice-president, responsible for enterprise and industry policy.
“We propose an unprecedented campaign against red tape, and we encourage Member States to embark on similar undertakings at national level. With a first strike we can already get well underway and reduce burdens by 1.3 billion euro.”
The Commission claims that cutting red tape by a quarter in the whole of the EU could increase GDP by €150bn.
The programme was said to ‘represent an important effort to streamline, modernise and make less burdensome the way in which policy objectives are implemented’.
© Crimson Business Ltd. 2007
