TALLINN, 29 October 2024 – Although the preparation of Estonia’s positions in the European Union's legislative process starts early, the positions are often not ready by the deadline initially set, which may limit Estonia’s ability to participate effectively in the negotiations. At the same time, only a few affected stakeholders are able to provide substantive feedback and the impact analysis may not always take into account the specific characteristics of Estonia, the National Audit Office finds in a report published today.

The European Commission published more than 600 initiatives in the period covered, i.e. from December 2019 to March 2024, more than 80% of which are legislative initiatives and the remainder are various strategies, action plans and annoucements. The large number of initiatives places a considerable burden on the Estonian government agencies to prepare positions and participate in negotiations. The new initiatives of the European Commission have become increasingly detailed and have an impact on policies in several areas of government at the same time. This increases the need for national coordination and the number of stakeholders to be involved, and makes it more difficult to prepare Estonia’s position.

“In order to ensure that Estonia’s interests are represented and our contribution is effective, the positions relied on in negotiations must be prepared in time, be clear, be based on analysis, take our interests into account in all respects and allow us to gain the support of other Member States,” said Auditor General Janar Holm. “The staff of the ministries cannot be increased further to deal with European Union initiatives. Therefore, it is particularly critical to distinguish between initiatives that are critical for Estonia and those that are less important, and to focus on what is a priority at the earliest possible stage of policy making.”

The audit showed that positions are often not ready by the originally planned deadline, as developing positions on the various European Union drafts is intensive and requires a lot of work. However, such delays could mean that once the substantive discussions in the working groups of the Council of the European Union are already underway, opportunities to participate effectively in the negotiations will be limited.

When analysing the impact of European Union affairs, more attention should be given to the specific effects on Estonian businesses, residents or the state. The impacts of prioritised drafts are managed to be analysed also in a short time, but there is a lack of consistency in how the Estonia-specific impacts are highlighted in the preparation of positions. While preparing the positions, the time for the initial impact assessment is limited. If the topic has not been analysed in Estonia before the initiative is made public, there is generally no time for a thorough impact assessment during the preparation of positions. This in turn is why the Estonian government agencies rely on the general impact assessments of the European Commission when preparing summaries of impact analyses, but these highlight the positive effects of the initiatives and give less attention to the costs or additional burden.

For example, the explanatory memorandum of the directive on the repair of goods stated in 2023 that the draft would have a rather positive impact on the market for repair services, but lacked any quantitative analysis of the Estonian repair services market. The analysis of the additional costs or administrative burden for Estonian companies, residents or the state is crucial in the preparation of positions, as it is possible to change the draft substantively during the drafting process and thus reduce negative impacts.

Stakeholders are asked for their opinions on initiatives and informed of the process of developing the positions, but better inclusion is hampered by the time allocated to the preparation of the positions. Stakeholder feedback rates can sometimes be very low because the materials are specific and voluminous, and the stakeholders may not have sufficient resources to prepare their opinions on time – in the reviewed cases, within 10–16 days. If the opinions of the stakeholders are not represented when the positions of Estonia are prepared, there is the risk that the interests of some of the shareholders affected by the draft are not taken into account in these positions.

It would be beneficial for the processing of positions and inclusion of stakeholders if the process was easier to observe and the final positions were easier to find. All of the opinions received from the ministries and stakeholders are not fully available in the draft information system, and therefore there is no assurance that all of the opinions received have been used in the analysis. At times, there are no final positions of Estonia approved by the Riigikogu, which may create confusion as to what the current positions are.

As the transposition of EU legislation into national law is based on the work done during the process of preparing positions, it is important that all the information (including input from involved stakeholders and co-responsible authorities) relied upon when the positions were prepared is available for analysis in its entirety also at a later stage.

Background:

As a Member State of the European Union, Estonia has had the right and the responsibility to contribute to the European Union’s legislative process for 20 years. Approximately one third of the draft laws prepared in Estonia are due to the transposition or implementation of European Union law. The principles of good legislative drafting must be taken into account as much as possible when positions are prepared.

The development of Estonia’s position on the European Union file published by the European Commission begins in the EU affairs coordination body acting by the Government Office, where the responsible ministries and deadlines for the submission of positions are agreed.

The responsible ministry analyses the impacts of the European Union file, consults the co-responsible ministries and affected stakeholders, and formulates positions to be agreed upon by the EU affairs coordination body. Positions on EU affairs are approved by the Government of the Republic.[1]

Positions formalised as resolutions of the Government are sent to the Riigikogu for its position or opinion. The Riigikogu may support, supplement, amend, not support or not take a position of its own regarding positions of the Government. The positions approved by the Riigikogu must be followed in negotiations at the various levels of the Council of the European Union.

Priit Simson
Communication Manager of the National Audit Office
+372 640 0777
+372 5615 0280
[email protected]
[email protected]
http://www.riigikontroll.ee/

• Posted: 10/28/2024 1:31 PM
• Last Update: 10/30/2024 2:46 PM
• Last Review: 10/30/2024 2:46 PM