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Prague, 1st June 2012

The OECD co-organised this workshop together with the Office of the Government of the Czech Republic and the Charles University in Prague. The aim of this workshop was to present recent developments in implementing Regulatory Impact Assessment in the Czech Republic as well as to enable an exposure to different approaches in some leading OECD countries with the goal of learning from their experience.

The two main topics are of an utmost importance not just for the Czech Republic but also for many others, especially EU countries. The first one deals with the emergence of the so-called “independent watchdogs” which is a relatively new trend in the institutional set up for RIA among OECD countries. The Czech RIA Board is the newest institution of its kind among OECD countries. The workshop was a good opportunity to compare the Czech practice with the functioning of other similar institutions across Europe. The second main issue was the implementation of EU legislation in the national regulatory framework and examining regulatory impact assessment in this process. This topic is relevant as an increasing proportion of national regulations, in some countries up to 70%, originate at the EU level. As a result, EU legislation accounts for roughly 50% of overall regulatory burdens in EU Member States.

The event was geared towards those responsible for regulatory quality in the Czech Republic: members of the Legislative Council of the Government and its Regulatory Impact Assessment Board, members of parliament,directors of legislative departments from the ministries and those in key positions in the regulatory field. The agenda promoted learning among experts from the Czech Republic and from the OECD community in the field of regulatory impact assessment. It included presentations of the processes taking place in the Czech Republic and abroad, with scope for questions and discussions.

The conference was opened by the Vice-Prime Minister of the Czech government Ms Karolína Peake.

• Press report
• Petr Mlsna: “RIA in the Czech Republic: Policy goals and recent developments”, Deputy Vice-Prime Minister and Director General of the Government Legislative Council Section
• Greg Bounds: “Recent trends in RIA implementation”, Deputy Head of the Regulatory policy Division, OECD
• Michal Mejstřík: “Quality review of the RIAs in the Czech republic”, Chairman, RIA Board, Czech Republic
• Wolf-Michael Catenhusen: "The Tasks of Nationaler Normenkontrollrat“, Deputy Chairman, Normenkontrollrat, Germany
• Lennart Palm: “Regelrådet - an independent watchdog“, Deputy Chairman, Regelrådet, Sweden
• Riccardo Maggi: “Impact Assessment Board of the European Commission“, European Commission, Secretariat General, Deputy Head of the Impact Assessment Board Secretariat
• Michael Gibbons, Chairman, "The Regulatory Policy Committee", United Kingdom
• Julian Farrel: “The United Kingdom's Guiding Principles for EU Legislation”, Deputy Director and Head of Europe Team, Better Regulation Executive, Department for Business, Innovation & Skills, United Kingdom
• Eric Marin: “Best practice on impact assessments in DG SANCO”, Deputy Head of the Unit on Innovation for Health and Consumers, European Commission, DG Health and Consumers