Scrutiny

Scrutiny of an impact assessment to a Swedish legislative proposal
In line with its mission, The Council’s opinion contains an assessment of the overall quality of the impact assessment accompanying a legislative proposal. This is done strictly from a business perspective which means that other aspects are not encompassed in the Council’s review.

What is crucial for the Council in adopting a position on an impact assessment is whether it fulfils the requirements in Sections 6 and 7 of the Ordinance on Regulatory Impact Assessment. In each scrutiny, the Council makes an aggregative assessment of how well the requirements in Sections 6 and 7 of the Ordinance on Regulatory Impact Assessment have been met in the impact assessment. The specific requirements can be found here. When adopting a position the Council uses the following formulations: The impact assessment does/does not meet the requirements set out in section 6 and 7 of the Ordinance on Regulatory Impact Assessment.

The opinion of the Council is advisory. This means that the Council has no mandate to stop a proposal from being adopted, even if the Council has deemed the impact assessment accompanying the proposal not to meet the requirements set out.

The Council does not issue opinions on all proposals that it receives. Various circumstances determine whether an opinion will be issued, circumstances, such as the expected effects of a proposal on business, the specified statutory period for response to the referral. One prerequisite for a case to be reviewed by the Council is naturally that it is encompassed by the Council´s mission. The Council does not issue Opinions on proposals for general advice or proposals that do not contain any statute text. Proposals concerning European Union legislation also fall outside the Council´s mandate unless the EU-proposal is deemed to have a large impact on businesses in Sweden and a specific request has been made by the regulator to the Council to review the EU impact assessment.

Review of an impact assessment to a proposal from the European Commission
The Council has as its mission to upon request from Swedish regulators review impact assessments to proposals from the European Commission that have been assessed to have great impact on Swedish business. The review leads to an opinion in which the Council presents its advice to what a Swedish impact assessment of the proposal should include.

Unlike the review of a Swedish impact assessment, the review of an impact assessment from the EU is not required to be based and structured on the requirements set out in Section 6 and 7 of the Ordinance on Regulatory Impact Assessment. In the review, the Council focuses on if the likely economic effects and effects on competitiveness to Swedish businesses are properly described as well as if there are shortcomings in the description of the Swedish market.

The opinion of the Council is advisory and can be used by the government when the proposal is negotiated in the Council of the European Union.