Business Europe Report critical of EU SME Test

A new analysis by three European business associations, including Business Europe, reveals that the application of the European Commission’s ‘SME Test’ methodology across Commission services remains inconsistent. With simplification and the reduction of the regulatory burden for SMEs rightly identified as key factors in the new EU mandate competitiveness agenda, the report is calling for a more rigorous approach to gauging the impact of new legislation on SMEs.

This follows a similar joint analysis in 2022, where BusinessEurope, Eurochambres, and SMEunited joined forces for a comprehensive assessment of the SME Test application across the European Commission services.

This year’s analysis shows some progress while still underlining the findings of the 2022 report: the SME Test is still neither systematically nor consistently applied across the European Commission services. The report also identifies areas for improvement. These include respecting the 12-week consultation period and providing a granular presentation of the information gathered during the consultations. Findings also showed that only 30% of legislative initiatives had a dedicated SME Test chapter.