Key documents

• Commission Impact Assessment Guidelines (January 2009)
• Guidelines
• Annexes 1 - 13
• Annexe 14: Best practice library

 

• Further Guidance provided by DGs
• Operational Guidance for Assessing Impacts on Sectoral Competitiveness within the Commission Impact Assessment System - A "Competitiveness Proofing" Toolkit for use in Impact Assessments [628 KB] (DG Enterprise and Industry)
• Operational Guidance on taking account of Fundamental Rights in Commission Impact Assessments [141 KB] (DG Justice and citizens' rights)
• Assessing Social Impacts (DG Employment and Equal Opportunities)

 

• European Court of Auditors (September 2010)
• Report by the European Court of Auditors [2 MB] on the Commission's impact assessment system.
  Commission Press release

 

• Impact Assessment Board
• Report for the year 2011
  Commission staff working document - SEC(2012)101
• Report for the year 2010
  Commission staff working document - SEC(2011)126
• Report for the year 2009
  Commission staff working document - SEC(2009)1728
• Report for the year 2008
  Commission staff working document - SEC(2009)55
• Report for the year 2007
  Commission staff working document - SEC(2008)120

• External Evaluation of the Commission's Impact Assessment System
• Main report - full text [2 MB] (2007)
  Main report - Executive Summary [152 KB]

• Annexes:
  Full text [3 MB]
  Methodology and survey results [335 KB]
  20 impact assessments quality assessments [972 KB]
  6 case study reports [325 KB]

• The launch of the Commission system
• Impact Assessment
  Commission Communication COM(2002)276 (2002)

 

• Other Commission documents on impact assessment
• Better regulation for Growth and Jobs in the European Union
  Commission communication - COM(2005)97 (2005)
• Next steps - In support of competitiveness and sustainable development
  Commission report - SEC(2004)1377 [202 KB] (2004)

 

• Impact assessment in other EU institutions
• Common Approach to Impact Assessment [38 KB] (2005)
  As foreseen in the Inter-Institutional Agreement on Better Lawmaking (2003) the Common Approach sets out basic rules for impact assessment throughout the legislative process.
• Inter-institutional Agreement on Better Lawmaking(2003)
  Common commitments and objectives of the three European institutions in the field of better regulation. Agreement includes the setting up of the High-level technical group for inter-institutional cooperation.

 

• International dimension
• Joint EU/US paper [230 KB]
  on impacts on trade and investment in impact assessment guidelines (May 2008)