Commission Impact Assessment Guidelines

The Commission Guidelines [783 KB] give general guidance to the Commission services for assessing potential impacts of different policy options.

The Guidelines were revised in 2009 based on:

• experience of the Commission services in preparing impact assessments
• experience of the independent Impact Assessment Board since it was created in late 2006
• inputs from the High Level Group of National Experts on Better Regulation
• external evaluation of the Commission's impact assessment system in 2006/2007, and
• public consultationon the Impact Assessment Guidelines held in mid-2008.

These Guidelines replace the previous Guidelines 2005 and also the 2006 update. Further thematic guidance is provided by the respective DGs.