There are quite a number of countries acknowledging that they suffer from "regulatory inflation" and probably others facing the same problem without admitting it. France has made it a major driver for regulatory reform, especially when it comes to regulation imposed on local authorities, often source of heavy compliance burdens. This issue has been reported quite frequently on this blog, but two newly released documents shed some more light on the topic. First, a parliamentary report describes the situation in detail and presents a bill to put an end to the problem. Secondly, a particularly rich study has just been published by Les Echos, an economic newspaper. In an article titled "France: the country with 400,000 regulations," it explains that "faced with greater demand for security or protection of the environment, regulations have multiplied, and become a real headache. To remedy this, the government has set up a mission to list the texts considered "absurd" that can be easily repealed." The article contains two picturesque examples of such absurd regulation.
The article delves into the origin of the problem: "Even if the phenomenon is not unique to France all countries must meet a growing demand from their citizens for safety, protection of future generations, or the application of the precautionary principle. But in this area, the French government still beats records. Taking just local government, the action of local officials is governed by a staggering 400,000 regulations and circulars! Texts, many of which also apply to businesses working with local authorities. And the flow is increasing. Already in 1991, the State Council warned against "the proliferation of texts, the growing instability of rules and clear worsening of the legal standard." As part of its contribution to the work of the Attali Commission, OECD made the point again in 2007, saying in thirty years "the body of legislation has increased by 35%, the volume of the" Official Gazette "has doubled and the length laws has increased by an average of 93 lines. "In the same spirit, the classification of the 2012-2013 World Economic Forum places France ... 126th out of 144 countries in terms of administrative complexity."
After summarizing steps taken by the previous government, the article points at the current administration's policy: on 18 December, the Ayrault governement decided on a series of new measures to stem the flow of new standards and improving their quality. One idea is to generalize the selected impact assessments prior to the publication of new legislation. That tackles the flow of new standards. But it will be even more difficult to streamline the stock." And the article suggests following the example of the French standards agency AFNOR which manages to avoid the proliferation of standards by regular cleanups of their inventory.
For the reference to administrative complexity, see World Economic Forum report 2012-13, page 169, the indicator is called "burden of government regulation."
After summarizing steps taken by the previous government, the article points at the current administration's policy: on 18 December, the Ayrault governement decided on a series of new measures to stem the flow of new standards and improving their quality. One idea is to generalize the selected impact assessments prior to the publication of new legislation. That tackles the flow of new standards. But it will be even more difficult to streamline the stock." And the article suggests following the example of the French standards agency AFNOR which manages to avoid the proliferation of standards by regular cleanups of their inventory.
For the reference to administrative complexity, see World Economic Forum report 2012-13, page 169, the indicator is called "burden of government regulation."
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