Implementing less and better regulation in Germany and Europe

Even in the electrical engineering and electronics industry overregulation and unnecessary rules hinder the growth of our companies and establishment of new businesses. Detailed regulations far away from practice prevent solutions achieved by the market and competition, quick reactions to market opportunities and competent people working on innovations. The current quickly growing flood of new taxing, inconsistent and restricting regulations are particularly critical, for example in the area of the protection of the environment and consumers. Detailed regulations at national and European level slow down innovation competition. Instead of this, politics should put forward acceptable goals that can be reached with the aid of market mechanisms.

• That is why within the framework of the Lisbon Agenda we are working to reduce unnecessary regulations and better regulation by consistently carrying out business impact assessments and determining the costs for companies that accompany the intended regulation, for example in the areas of European contract law, tender law, consumer protection and maintenance of industrial health and safety standards.
• More market mechanisms and fewer detailed regulations: The state must wherever possible avoid detailed regulations and instead set objectives which give the leeway  that technical change with innovative problem-solving needs. The efficient elaboration is transferred to the respective interest groups (stakeholders).
• A good example of EU legislation consistently grafted onto market forces is the EU directive on the waste of electrical and electronic equipment(WEEE) and its expected conversion into German law, in whose development the ZVEI has been actively involved in for 13 years. In accordance with the principle “As much market as possible, as much regulation as really necessary “, this directive leads to a high degree of costs- and quality-competition for the waste management but also for a clear legal framework for all the competitors. Also on the agenda in any case remains the most uniform possible conversion of this directive in all 25 member states of the European Union.
• We also need for faith in the market forces for the current topics of ecodesign and energy efficiency.
• That is why politics should rethink the current draft directive on energy-using products (EuP) and together with the industry hold a discussion about how market forces could provide even better energy efficiency more quickly.
• And in the so-called EU substance policy too, there should be coherent and universal, comprehensible regulations instead of sector or branch-specific ones. A risk-based approach is necessary instead of the random exclusion of individual substances, regardless of their actual risk potential to man and the environment connected with their current use (“hazardous substance of the week“).
• An interesting new political approach to CO2 reduction from the viewpoint of the electrical engineering and electronics industry is so-called emissions trading. The necessary and intensive discussion about the risks during the implementation should not make us lose sight of the opportunities. As a market economic instrument, emissions trading, subsidies and directly steering technology by means of taxes and levies should  be considered. Direct market interventions such as fixed-price guarantees for renewable energy or the ordered departure from nuclear energy are not compatible with the market mechanisms promoted by the ZVEI.

Concrete ZVEI initiatives:

• Community initiative by UNICE, ORGALIME and ZVEI: “Less and Better Regulation”
• Achieve electronics waste management as a successful example of the concept “As much competition as possible, as much regulation as really necessary”
• ZVEI initiatives: More market for energy-efficient products – convert the proposed EuP-Directive in a market-oriented way