Towards a Reinforced Culture of Consultation and Dialogue

1

UEAPME Position Paper on the Consultation document:

"Towards a reinforced culture of consultation and dialogue

- Proposal for general principles and minimum standards for consultation of interested parties by the Commission."

COM(2002)277final

On 5th June 2002 the European Commission approved a "better regulation package" comprising an action plan to simplify and improve the regulatory environment, proposals for an integrated impact assessment system and for minimum standards for consultation. This position paper of UEAPME[1] deals only with the last issue. UEAPME will express its position on the other communications in a separate position paper.

UEAPME welcomes the initiative of the European Commission to start a discussion on general principles and minimum standards for consultation, as it will reinforce the culture of consultation and dialogue. UEAPME also strongly supports the objective of the document, to ensure that all relevant parties are consulted in an adequate way.

However, some issues have to be dealt with in a more differentiated way, as some statements in the consultation document remain extremely vague, and as the document does not contain key elements for improvement.

According to the document, the principal aims of the proposed approach are the following :

• To contribute to a better involvement of interested parties through a more transparent consultation process, which will foster the Commission’s accountability.

• To provide general principles and standards for consultation that help the Commission rationalise its consultation procedures and to carry them out in a meaningful and systematic way.

• To build a framework for consultation that is coherent, yet flexible enough to take into account the specific requirements of the diversity of interests as well as the need to design appropriate consultation strategies for each policy proposal.

• To promote mutual learning and exchange of good practices within the Commission.

Unfortunately, the document does not respond clearly to all the above-mentioned aims.

UEAPME fully agrees with the Commission's position that good consultation helps to improve the quality of the policy outcome and enhances the involvement of the parties concerned.

However, the Commission's approach to have broad open consultation of all interested parties and individuals, mainly through the Internet, is, in UEAPME's opinion, not the best means for good consultation.

Good and efficient consultation requires in the first place consultation of the groups directly concerned and affected, and this should be done through their representative organisations according to the proposed focused consultation procedures. Therefore preference should be given to the focused consultation procedures, and criteria should be developed by the Commission to consult in a first phase the representative parties and organisations involved.

Attention should be paid to the important role which representative horizontal and sectorial business organisations play as intermediaries between enterprises and the European institutions. Indeed, their role is not simply to register or collect the opinion of their members, but also to find a common position that reflects the opinion of the different counties or economic sectors. As such, their opinions are more than a simple sum of all the opinions from single enterprises. They are the result of a democratic consultation and decision-making process. Regulations based on collectively agreed positions will also be more easily respected. It means also the application of the subsidiarity principle.

A culture of consultation and dialogue requires not only a consultation without engagement on specific proposals, but constitutes a compulsory part of the whole decision-making process as well as the consultation and involvement of the parties concerned during the whole preparatory process. The European Charter for Small Enterprises [2], as well as the European Parliament[3] and the ECOSOC[4]called on the Commission to initiate and increase consultation with the representative organisations, particularly those representing small businesses.

Direct consultation of businesses through the Internet can only be an additional way of consultation as the results lack representativity and are frequently biased. Small business owners do not have the time to answer complex executive questionnaires on e.g. planned new legislation and here representative organisations play the role of intermediary.

Moreover, many SMEs, especially micro-enterprises, do not use the internet yet, and it will still take time, investment and training, before most SMEs use it and become familiar with it. To avoid the exclusion of whole SME sectors, consultation should not be solely organised on an electronic basis. There will still be a need for contacts "on a paper-basis". Otherwise, a lot of SMEs will be excluded from consultation.

So far, the results of direct consultation of businesses were also biased by the fact that the EC website and documents are not available (or not at the same time) in the different official E.U. languages and are not written in everyday language.

Regarding the principles:

Under openness and accountability, the text says that, with respect to organisations which seek to contribute to EU policy development, "it must be apparent' ... how accurately they reflect the interests that they represent".

UEAPME supports the Commissions call for openness and accountability for the consulted organisations to secure representativity. Nevertheless, it is difficult to see how the accurate reflection of the represented interests shall be ensured. More concrete criteria need to be set up for this requirement.

Regarding the proposed minimum standards:

Under point A, the text should cover the context in which the EC is to conduct consultation. Conceivably, consultation can take place at one of two stages: firstly, at the stage where views are invited on a range of options on which no provisional EC preference has been arrived at; and secondly, at the stage where provisional policy decisions have been made and comments are invited on the proposals and on technicalities.

Under point C, the suggested timescale for consultations - 6 weeks - is much too short. If collective, pan-EU input is to be encouraged, and if this is to be properly representative, organisations will need more time. A minimum of 10 weeks should be the norm. (The "Code of practice on written consultation" used by the U.K. Government indicates that 12 weeks should be the standard minimum period for a consultation.). Documents should also be available in time, especially for meetings. Meetings and hearings should also be announced well in advance. In this context, UEAPME would like to stress that some recent "consultations" launched during the last week of July by some DGs, in full holiday period, are an absolute mockery of the consultation principles.

Under point E. Specific Elements for focused consultations, it is not clear, if consultations refer to the national or the European level. UEAPME is in favor of consulting only organisations at European level.

Furthermore, the document states that "where the Commission carries out focused consultation procedures, the Commission should ensure that relevant parties have an opportunity to express their opinions."

The difference between open consultation and focused consultation procedures is not clear. It should be better specified what should be understood under "focused consultation" and what distinguishes it from "other" consultations.

In the opinion of UEAPME only relevant parties should be consulted as a rule.

UEAPME cannot agree with the proposed elements on how to determine the relevant parties as they are too vague - e.g. "proper balance between large and small organisations". Once again, the criteria should be the representativity of an organisation. Other elements are irrelevant and not democratic: e.g. "the track record of participants in previous consultations".

The Communication continues its vagueness: "Where appropriate, the Commission encourages contributions from interested parties organized at European level"

Focused criteria should be developed in order to define the appropriateness and the encouragement by the Commission. As only representative organisations at European level should be consulted there is no reason to extend it to "interested" parties.

One of the core issues of the Communication should be criteria for eligibility and this is treated only briefly in the document: "It should be noted (!?) that the ECOSOC has produced a set of eligibility criteria for the so-called civil dialogue. The Committee wishes to discuss these further with the European Institutions and civil society organisations". Except for this announcement, nothing is said about :

-the opinion of the Commission about these criteria;

-the intentions of the Commission on this issue;

-the initiatives it is going to take (if any).

In the opinion of UEAPME, the criteria proposed by the ECOSOC, should be used by the Commission as a basis to define "relevant" parties at European level.

Conclusions.

As already mentioned, the merit of the consultation document is that the Commission shows its will to reinforce the culture of consultation and dialogue. UEAPME fully agrees with the principle aims of this proposal. However, if the Commission wants to be convincing on this issue, it is of utmost importance that it comes back in a short time with more developed proposals. UEAPME, as a representative European organisation, is willing to offer the Commission all its experience and that of its Member organisations in this field and to supply the Commission with more detailed comments and suggestions.

We would also suggest that the Commission should organise a public debate with the concerned parties on this issue and to share best national practices, to stimulate a constructive debate at European policy level on the role and appropriate forms of dialogue with the representative SME organisations

Brussels, 30th July 2002.

MAISON DE L'ECONOMIE EUROPEENNE - RUE JACQUES DE LALAING 4 - B-1040 BRUXELLES

TEL ÷32 2 230.75.99 - FAX ÷32 2 230.78.61 - E-MAIL

[1]UEAPME is the employer’s organisation representing the interests, at European level, of crafts, trades and SMEs in the European Union and countries applying for accession to the European Union. It is non-profit seeking and non-partisan. Its 72 member organisations consist of national cross-sectoral federations, European branch federations and other associate members which support the SME family. Of the 19 million enterprises in the European Union, UEAPME represents more than 7 million which employ over 30 million people. Across the whole of Europe, UEAPME represents over 10 million enterprises with nearly 50 million employees.

[2] Endorsed at the Feira European Council, June 2000, see Action line 10.

[3] European Parliament resolution on the Commission communication - sustaining the commitments, increasing the pace (COM(2001) 641).P5_TAPROV(2002)0324

(A5-0192/2002 - Rapporteur: Dominique Vlasto).

[4] Rapport Girond, CES 1471/2001