Priority areas

The renewed Action Programme for eliminating administrative barriers puts greater emphasis on areas which analyses of individual stages have proven to be more problematic and put a greater unnecessary burden on the economy and citizens.

They are:

• Environment and Spatial Planning,
• Wider area of labour law,
• Cohesion (drawing on European funds),
• Finance (taxes and excise duties, as well as other duties), and
• The economy (status related legal affairs, and business or financial reports).

The priority areas refer to legislative requirements, which comprise most of the burdens that business entities and companies face. This enables legislators to direct their endeavours towards certain areas which may be greatly influenced by an enhanced legislative environment for business entities and citizens.
At the European level, the priority areas were selected on the basis of a pilot study in 2006, which included measurements performed in the Czech Republic, Denmark, the Netherlands and the UK.

At the 2007 Spring European Council, prime ministers made a commitment to measure and reduce administrative burdens by 25 per cent in 13 areas by 2012.

More on the selection of priority areas at the EU level is available on the European Commission website.