The Better Regulation Practices across the European Union 2025 report provides a comprehensive analysis of rulemaking practices across all Member States of the European Union, assessing their alignment with OECD best practices for high-quality regulation. Building on the two previous editions published in 2019 and 2022, this third edition tracks progress to date and identifies key priorities for further improvement.
The analysis is grounded in the OECD Indicators of Regulatory Policy and Governance (iREG), which benchmark countries’ performance against the OECD Recommendation on Regulatory Policy and Governance. To ensure full coverage of EU Member States (EUMS), the scope of the data collection has been extended to three OECD accession candidate countries -- Bulgaria, Croatia, and Romania -- as well as non-Members Cyprus and Malta. The report focuses on three core better regulation tools – stakeholder engagement, ex ante regulatory impact assessment and ex post evaluation. It also examines how EUMS apply these tools in the context of EU law, particularly in preparing for negotiations at the Council of the EU and in the domestic transposition of EU directives. To provide a practical and action-oriented assessment, this report uses the t stages of the regulatory policy cycle as an analytical lens to track the implementation of better regulation practices, including identifying challenges and exploring solutions; regulatory design; monitoring and implementation; and evaluation and review. Numerous examples from across EUMS complement the data analysis, illustrating good practice and offering potential pathways for improvement.
The report was prepared by the OECD Public Governance Directorate under the leadership of Elsa Pilichowski. It was co-ordinated by Tobias Querbach under the direction of Anna Pietikäinen, Head of the Regulatory Policy Division. The main authors are Tobias Querbach and Ramisa Huq. Guidance and input throughout the development was provided by Paul Davidson. The report significantly benefited from comments by Daniel Trnka, Deputy Head of the Regulatory Policy Division (Chapters 2 and 3) and Giuseppa Ottimofiore, Head of the Effective Regulatory Delivery Programme, (Chapter 4). Analytical support and drafting inputs were provided by Anaïs Rault, Simay Tekin and Fernanda Pioli Macedo. The report greatly benefited from the peer review by Bagrat Tunyan, OECD-EU Initiative on Support for Improvement in Governance and Management, and Deniz Devrim, Innovative, Digital and Open Government Division, OECD Public Governance Directorate (Chapter 3). The development of the report greatly benefited from comments and feedback from delegates to the OECD Regulatory Policy Committee and other countries covered, in particular through a dedicated ad hoc session in October 2024. This report was prepared for publication by Jennifer Stein. It benefitted from editorial assistance from Andrea Uhrhammer.
The iREG and associated survey were developed in close co-operation with the OECD Steering Group on Measuring Regulatory Performance. The 2024 iREG data collection underpinning this report was conducted by the Measuring Regulatory Performance team under the co-ordination of Paul Davidson. The extension of the data collection and drafting of country profiles for Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, Cyprus, and Malta was led by Tobias Querbach, Ramisa Huq and Pamela Portocarrero Pereira. Country profiles for OECD Member countries are identical reproductions of those published in the OECD Regulatory Policy Outlook 2025.
The development of the report was financially supported by the European Commission.
The work on regulatory policy is conducted under the supervision of the OECD Regulatory Policy Committee, whose mandate is to assist both Members and non-Members in building and strengthening capacity for regulatory quality and regulatory reform. The Regulatory Policy Committee is supported by the Regulatory Policy Division of the Public Governance Directorate. The Directorate’s mission is to help governments at all levels design and implement strategic, evidence-based and innovative policies to strengthen public governance, respond effectively to diverse and disruptive economic, social and environmental challenges and deliver on government’s commitments to citizens.