The Polish Case of Deregulation: Bottom-up Action as a First Step for Simplification

If we want the European Union to build a gamechanging environment for the competitive potential and future advantages of our economy – we first must, and in a relatively short time, improve and significantly simplify the regulatory framework of the European initiatives and undertakings.

In general, there is a long list of problems generated by the redundancy of regulatory pressures on business development. A non-exhaustive list of examples includes the phenomenon of overregulation, especially due to redundant national legal solutions (gold-plating phenomenon), which undermines the concept of the single market. There is a lack of clear and effective guidelines and tools to implement many regulations with full involvement and participation of all stakeholders. Moreover, the lack of consistency between some legislative solutions (one legislative area existing in a silo vis-avis another) and overlapping procedures, especially related to the reporting of obligations (the redundancy of requirements). Not to mention the relatively low level of utilisation of digital instruments, automatic solutions to simplify procedures and fulfill all duties, and the bureaucratic burdens limiting business freedoms and opportunities for growth (especially for SMEs).

There are already a number of concrete packages of solutions prepared by the European Commission, including the omnibus package on sustainability (climate actions and climate legislation); the omnibus package on investment simplification; as well as the package which includes the small-caps model and the removal of paper requirements. Finally, there is also the upcoming digital omnibus package. The work on them has started in the Council and in the European Parliament.

This paper will focus only on the one essential dimension of the legislative efforts – the digital ecosystem. In addition, this paper seeks to present some national measures for simplification, especially showing the kind of bottom-up model of deregulation efforts that was pursued in Poland.

Download the publication