A new study commissioned by the Austrian Chamber of Labour in Vienna and AK EUROPA shows who benefits from the ‘Better Regulation’ agenda. In the early 1990s, the initiative had positive objectives: complex, technical texts were to be simplified and made easier to read. Over the years, however, this initiative has increasingly become a deregulation agenda that benefits companies but endangers social standards.

The measures of the agenda are now officially supposed to benefit SMEs in particular. However, according to the extremely broad definition of SMEs, 99.8 per cent of all companies are SMEs. Among the multitude of measures, which are applied across the board, important standards for employees, consumers and environmental protection are now also at risk. Some initiatives have the potential to harm the companies themselves.

The Austrian Chamber of Labour in Vienna and AK EUROPA also advocate for the removal of outdated and no longer relevant bureaucratic burdens. However, it must be emphasised that an evaluation must be carried out before any removal in order to avoid sacrificing useful standards for employees, society and companies just to achieve purely quantitative targets such as a 50 percent reduction in reporting requirements.