Regulation and innovation in the European Union : the European Commission and the Council in the early stages of the policy process

Abstract

Innovation permeates the regulatory policy vision of European Union in the framework of the so-called ‘better regulation’ agenda. Even though both the Council and the Commission recognize the nexus between regulation and innovation, they seem to have different strategies. For the Commission, the need to steer innovation towards certain objectives justifies the introduction of new regulations. For the Council, new regulations should be appraised in terms of their likely impact on innovation. Empirically, we will test whether there are two different approaches by examining evidence from the Conclusions of the Competitiveness Council, think tanks reports on the innovation principle, and the text of the Commission’s regulatory proposals, including impact assessments (IAs), in the field of the Digital agenda of the EU. We find that the Commission is more interested in harnessing innovation towards goals such as ‘socially responsible innovation’ than in deploying tests on whether regulations may have negative effects on innovation. The findings contribute to the literature on EU regulation and innovation, showing how behind a common agenda for digital innovation the institutions of the EU have different approaches.