Impact assessments and evaluations

The European Commission and DG Internal Market and Services in particular are committed to increasing the role impact assessment and evaluation play in improving law-making in the EU and making administration more efficient. The existing system for evaluation of expenditure programmes has gradually been extended to cover non-spending areas, such as legislative and regulatory activities and policies. The Better Regulation package adopted by the Commission in June 2002 complemented these ambitions by establishing impact assessment as a tool to improve the quality and coherence of the policy development process.

Evaluation and impact assessment are organised in a decentralised way in the Commission. Directorates General and Services are responsible for implementing the respective functions and activities. Yet, Commission-wide networks have been set up to co-ordinate activities on Commission level. They are organised by central units in DG Budget and in the Secretariat General for evaluation and impact assessment, respectively.