Impact assessment in the European Commission - a system with multiple objectives

Impact assessment (IA) is an instrument that is gradually making inroads into European Union policy making. Great ambitions are tied to the introduction of a compulsory system of IA as a way to achieve better regulation but also as a tool to improve legitimacy of government and increase unity in European politics. In order to raise the quality of the assessments, which has been questioned, there is a call for application of more evidence-based methods. As a result, there might be a window of opportunity for greater use of scientific support in impact assessment work. However, the EC's IA system has several overlapping and partly contradictory objectives - to produce estimates about possible future impacts is only one of them. The IA system should be understood as a political instrument shaped by its multiple objectives and the political context of permanent negotiations in which it is situated. The arguments put forward emanate from a close reading of EC documents concerning IA procedures and the ambitions they display paired with assessment practices as revealed in interviews with officials in the main EU institutions, trying to perform IAs and to cope with the political balancing act they are embedded in. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.