EIMIN: Administrative burden on business reduced by €1.89 million in half a year
The Ministry of the Economy and Innovation estimates that the administrative burden on businesses has been reduced by €7.16 million in the first half of this year. It also estimates that it cost businesses more than €5 million to adapt to the new legal requirements.
"This is not the first year that we have assessed draft legislation prepared by public authorities in order to identify opportunities to reduce the regulatory burden and propose ways to do so. It is important to minimise the cost to business, so institutions must take action to reduce red tape. We estimate that in the first half of this year the regulatory burden on businesses was reduced by EUR 1.89 million," said Aušrinė Armonaitė, Minister of the Economy and Innovation.
In total, the administrative burden and adjustment costs have decreased by EUR 155 million since the assessment started in 2014: the administrative burden has decreased by more than EUR 162.2 million, while the adjustment costs, which only started last year, have increased by almost EUR 7.2 million.
"A proportionate regulatory framework in Lithuania opens up more opportunities for businesses to create jobs and strengthen the country's economy. The assessment of adjustment costs, which we started last year, helps us to better determine the financial burden that regulation imposes on economic operators. This will allow us to make the right decisions and avoid overly stringent or ineffective regulatory measures that could undermine business development or competitiveness," said Ieva Valeškaitė, Vice-Minister of the Economy and Innovation.
The 17 authorities provided EIMIN with data on 64 draft regulations for the first half of 2024. 7 of these authorities have reduced the regulatory burden. The best performers were the State Tax Inspectorate (STI) (€6.17 million reduction), the Ministry of Finance (€4.49 million) and the State Data Agency (€40.47 thousand).
One of the projects that reduced the regulatory burden the most was the change implemented by the VMI, which reduced the burden by almost €4.4 million. This relates to the rules on the use of electronic receipts, which provide that an electronic receipt is considered to be an electronic document. This means that a taxpayer does not have to produce two essentially very similar documents at the same time, i.e. an e-receipt and a VAT invoice, invoice and other documents.
It should also be noted that the 10 authorities have increased the regulatory burden. The most significant increase of EUR 3.31 million was caused by amendments to the Road Transport Code aimed at reducing the conditions for shadow activities in the sector of carriage of passengers by road for remuneration, ensuring the safety of passengers using the services of carriers providing carriage of passengers by road for remuneration and other road users, the provision of information to passengers, better service, fair payment for the service received and the unavoidable liability of carriers.
The regulatory burden was also increased by €2.24 million by an amendment to the Climate Change Management Act, which tightens the requirements for emission allowances (AAUs) to reduce the number of AAUs allocated free of charge and imposes additional obligations for the application of greenhouse gas reduction measures.
An amendment to the Information Society Services Act, which implements an EU regulation - the Digital Services Act - increases the regulatory burden by €0.96 million. The amendment introduces new obligations for intermediary service providers.
An amendment to the Information Society Services Act, which implements an EU regulation - the Digital Services Act - increases the regulatory burden by €0.96 million. The amendment introduces new obligations for intermediary service providers.
Amendments to EU and international legislation also contributed to the increase in burden, with an increase of €6.1 million in the first half of 2024 and a decrease of €7.9 million in the regulatory burden of national legislation.
Following a detailed analysis, EIMIN makes recommendations to public authorities to avoid excessive regulatory burdens and to remove existing barriers. It suggests that authorities systematically review existing legislation in selected regulatory areas, pay particular attention to those areas where economic operators are most likely to complain, consult regularly with businesses and their representative associations, invest in digital tools and platforms to streamline business processes and reduce the time and resources spent on them.
It also invites public authorities to avoid increasing recurrent costs for economic operators. When transposing EU legislation into national law, it suggests that the nature of the requirements to be imposed should be carefully assessed to ensure that the legislation does not create additional regulatory burdens that are not required by EU law.