Common European Sales Law - Detailed Appraisal by the EP Impact Assessment Unit of the European Commission's Impact Assessment

Hĺbková analýza 15-01-2013

This note analyses the Impact Assessment (IA) accompanying the Commission Proposal for a Regulation on a Common European Sales Law from a methodological point of view, without dealing with the substance of the proposal. In general, the IA seems to respect the methodological requirements the Commission has imposed upon itself in it Impact Assessment Guidelines. The problems to be addressed by the proposed legislation are clearly explained, related to the underlying problem drivers and logically presented. The set of possible policy options is sufficiently wide and there is sufficient explanation of the baseline scenario. The Commission seems to have broadly consulted with stakeholders and presents stakeholder positions in the IA. It analyses a broad range of possible impacts for the policy options, with an emphasis on economic impacts (mainly administrative and transaction costs). The Commission attempts to make a quantitative estimation of the transaction costs, at the same time acknowledging that adequate quantitative data are not available. The transformation of the purely qualitative answers of economic operators in Eurobarometer studies and other surveys into quantitative estimations can be criticised as producing unreliable results.