Evaluation

The European Commission regularly assesses the performance of its activities. Evaluation contributes to evidence-based policy making and helps to inform European citizens about how taxpayers' money is spent.

The Commission carries out evaluations for different purposes:

to assess whether the objectives pursued by its interventions have been attained and to account for possible undesired effects;
to verify that objectives have been achieved with a minimum amount of resources;
to learn from experience and to improve the quality of its future interventions;
to enhance the transparency and the accountability of the EU.

Evaluation is a building bloc of the smart regulation strategy, which sets out the Commission's plans to further enhance the quality of regulation.

Evaluations of separate measures are an important input into fitness checks pdf - 104 KB [104 KB] , which are comprehensive policy evaluations assessing if the regulatory framework for a policy area is fit for purpose and, if not, what should be changed.

Evaluation helps to ensure that legislation is of the highest quality possible and to identify opportunities for simplification and administrative burden reduction. Evaluation is an important part of the Commission's Smart Regulation strategy. A stakeholder consultation on Smart Regulation in the EU is open until 21 September 2012.

These pages provide information on evaluation in the European Commission, including access to completed evaluations, information on key evaluation activities and a list of key documents and contact points.