EU Commission blames national capitals for gold-plating rules as it overhauls Better Regulation

The European Commission has turned its fire on national governments, accusing them of systematically inflating EU legislation with extra requirements that raise costs for business and fracture the single market. In a presentation of its revised Better Regulation guidelines on Tuesday, Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis said the practice known in Brussels jargon as gold-plating had become a central obstacle to the Commission's own drive to cut red tape by 25 percent and save the EU economy €37.7 billion a year by 2029.

Gold-plating as a structural problem

The Commission used the term gold-plating 20 times in its announcement, a deliberate rhetorical choice intended to shift the political burden onto capitals. When member states transpose directives into national law, they frequently add reporting obligations, stricter thresholds or additional permitting steps that the original EU text did not require. The result, Dombrovskis argued, is that companies face a patchwork of rules rather than the common standards the single market was designed to deliver. The Commission's Better Regulation portal now lists the identification and removal of gold-plating as a core objective of the upcoming regulatory deep cleaning.

This is not a new complaint. The European Court of Auditors has repeatedly flagged gold-plating in reports on environmental and financial services legislation. What is new is the Commission's decision to make it the centrepiece of its simplification narrative, effectively telling national parliaments and ministries that they are the primary authors of the regulatory fatigue about which their own businesses complain.

Competitiveness pressure sharpens the political calculus

The push comes after years of volatile energy prices and growth that has barely exceeded stagnation. Industry groups from BusinessEurope to national federations in Germany, France and Italy have argued that the cumulative weight of EU rules, covering industrial permits, waste, pesticides, chemicals and digital markets, puts European firms at a disadvantage against rivals in the United States and China who face lighter compliance loads. EU leaders have echoed that message at successive European Council meetings, asking the Commission to keep cutting.

The political sensitivity is evident in the language. Von der Leyen, speaking to conservative politicians in Berlin on Monday, framed the effort as a matter of global competitiveness: "We are determined to bring about change so that in Europe and in the member states we can more quickly and effectively create an environment where companies can grow and develop the global competitiveness they need." The choice of venue, Berlin, before a centre-right audience, signals that the Commission sees the German industrial lobby as a critical constituency for the simplification agenda.

Ten omnibus packages and a deep cleaning pipeline

Since the start of von der Leyen's second mandate, the Commission has tabled 10 omnibus proposals that reopen existing laws to strip out provisions deemed overly burdensome. Measures already agreed include reduced environmental disclosure obligations for companies, simplified access to EU farm payments for small-scale holdings, and a delay to new supply-chain due-diligence requirements that would have forced firms to trace raw-material origins. Further omnibus packages on energy and taxation are expected before the end of the year.

Alongside those sectoral cuts, the Commission plans a horizontal regulatory deep cleaning over the next two years across 12 priority areas: free movement of goods and services, financial services, health, housing, food safety, environment, and others. The aim is to identify obsolete requirements, resolve contradictions between acts, and remove rules that no longer serve their purpose. The scale is considerable, the EU acquis runs to tens of thousands of legal acts, but the Commission has not yet published a baseline inventory of what it considers gold-plated at national level.

Faster lawmaking meets democratic scrutiny concerns

The Better Regulation overhaul also proposes procedural changes that would shorten impact assessments and public consultation periods. The Commission argues that the current process is too slow for a geopolitical environment that demands rapid regulatory responses. Critics see a different risk. A coalition of 50 non-governmental organisations wrote to the Commission in February warning that expediency and efficiency cannot come at the cost of democratic values, fundamental rights and evidence-based policymaking. The EU Ombudsman, Emily O'Reilly, criticised the executive last year for rushing deregulation proposals without respecting the standard legislative timeline.

The Commission says it has listened. It will now "assess the time-sensitivity of each situation and the possible detrimental consequences of delayed action" rather than apply a blanket acceleration. That formulation leaves considerable discretion to the services drafting each file, and it remains unclear how the Commission will demonstrate that a shortened consultation did not exclude affected stakeholders.

The single market's unfinished architecture

Gold-plating is a symptom of a deeper tension. The EU's regulatory power, its ability to set standards that become global defaults, has long been a source of influence. But the same density of rules that projects power outward creates friction inward. When France adds labelling requirements to a food-safety directive, or Germany tightens an industrial-emissions threshold beyond the EU floor, they are exercising sovereign discretion that the treaties permit. The Commission's argument is that the cumulative effect erodes the very single market that gives European rules their global reach.

There is also an enforcement gap. The Commission can launch infringement procedures against member states that gold-plate in ways that breach the principle of maximum harmonisation, but such cases are slow, politically sensitive and rarely pursued for technical additions that fall short of a clear treaty violation. The new guidelines do not create new legal tools; they rely on peer pressure, transparency and the political momentum of the competitiveness agenda.

What the numbers actually show

The €37.7 billion annual savings figure is an aggregate estimate derived from the Commission's own regulatory fitness and performance (REFIT) programme, which surveys businesses on compliance costs. It assumes full implementation of all planned simplifications and no new regulatory burdens, a heroic assumption given that the EU is simultaneously negotiating new rules on artificial intelligence, critical raw materials and corporate sustainability reporting. The 25 percent reduction target is measured against a 2024 baseline that the Commission has not fully published, making independent verification difficult.

Christian Doleschal, a German centre-right MEP, captured the political impatience: "The Commission must finally deliver on its promise to cut red tape, particularly given the current global political situation. Turning a blind eye is not an option." His remark reflects a broader view in the European Parliament's largest group, the European People's Party, that the Commission's credibility on competitiveness rests on visible results before the 2029 election cycle.