In no more than 100 words 0

Lee Rotherham European Union

It is, perhaps, a delicious twist, but Whitehall and its national counterparts are themselves to be hit by bureaucracy.

A Commission Decision from November (2009/851/EC) establishes a questionnaire to be filled out by national governments, setting out how they have transposed a directive on the disposal of waste batteries.

It is itself intriguing that the questionnaire, the basis of a "regular" reporting, has taken three years to come into being.

It is also to be commended that the Commission has come up with a formula designed to "avoid excessive administrative burden". For instance, the responsible government department is required to provide electronic links where possible to the legislation, and descriptions of measures are asked to be kept commendably to the point by limiting the size of the response.

Yet as a pointer of how the legislative process has evolved in the European Union, and the role respective civil servants have to play, it provides an unusual window on the hierarchy of power.

Lee Rotherham

Lee is a Research Fellow at the TPA. Co-author of the hit Bumper Books of Government Waste, he is an extensively published EU expert and front bench adviser.

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