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The article focuses on the better regulation strategy of the Juncker Commission and what does the evidence show. Topics include better regulation as identified in the discourse of the European Union (EU) is stated to be a set of activities and evidence based policy instruments, the EU better regulation policy is one possible incarnation of some ideas about regulatory reform and the governance of EU legislation, the Regulatory Scrutiny Board (RSB) stated to have emerged since 2015 as more than just a watchdog, and the European Commission stated to have taken a number of decisions grounded in Juncker Commission and European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans beliefs about the legitimate scope of subsidiarity.

Since 2003, the European Commission has produced analytical documents (called Impact Assessments, IAs) to appraise its policy proposals. This appraisal process is the cornerstone of the regulatory reform policy of the European Union. Previous research has been concerned with the quality of the IAs in terms of evidence-based policy, usages of economic analysis and other standards of smart regulation. Instead, we move to a different perspective. We draw on the narrative policy framework to explore IAs as a text and discursive instrument. Conceptually, insights from discursive institutionalism are used to explore narratives as tools of coordination within complex organizations such as the European Commission, and as communicative tools through which policy-makers seek to enhance the plausibility, acceptability and, ultimately, legitimacy for their policy proposals. Empirically, we consider a sample of IAs that differ by originating DGs, legal instrument, and level of saliency. The findings show that both in coordinating and communicating policy, the European bureaucracy projects a certain definition of its identity via the narratives it deploys. The Commission may use IAs to produce evidence-based policy, but it also an active narrator. It engages with IAs to provide a presentation of self, to establish EU norms and values, and to create consensus around policy proposals by using causal plots, doomsday scenarios, and narrative dramatization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European governments have adopted policy instruments for regulatory appraisal, oversight, ex-post evaluation, and simplification in the context of the so-called 'smart regulation agenda'. In this article we compare the two most important instruments, that is, regulatory impact assessment ( RIA) and the standard cost model ( SCM). We answer the following questions: What are the economic rationales that, at least in principle, should make the SCM and RIA work? What are the learning models that, yet again in principle, allow the two instruments to produce effects? The RIA economic rationale is grounded in welfare economics. The SCM economics is rudimentary: one can hardly make an economic case for the SCM. With regard to learning models, RIA draws on rational-synoptic models, whilst the SCM is inspired by experience-based learning. We then discuss economic rationales and learning models jointly, thus explaining the different implementation patterns of the two instruments and exposing the ambiguities in the relationship among instruments, ideas, and behavioural change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional scholarship on international taxation tends to address competition. It focuses on governments and does not integrate purposeful political strategy with the ideational dimension of policy change. In this article we examine co-operation, use a multi-actor perspective to explain the selection of modes of governance and bridge the gap between the strategic and ideational components of policy change. We show how a political strategy pursued by the Commission has led to the emergence of two functionally differentiated governance arenas, dealing with different definitions of tax problems and operating with modes of governance that suit the internal logic of individual arenas. We then examine the limitations of political strategy, by showing how a third governance arena dominated by the European Court of Justice has become increasingly important, with little control exercised by the Commission and the Member States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]