Särav said the initiative is not an official European Commission working party, but a project started by Estonia itself.

She said: "This is essentially a group of 'friends of simplification.' In Europe, it is common to form informal, like-minded groups among member states."
"Estonia initiated this, and we have invited seven other countries that think similarly to Estonia."

"In English, the group's name is 'Friends of simplification.' There isn't a perfect equivalent in Estonian, but 'Friends of simplification' is a term of endearment," she added.

The official said she could not reveal which countries have been invited to join the group.

The group's objective is to provide the European Commission with proposals on which legislation should be simplified, Särav said.

"These could be existing legal acts, ones the commission is about to introduce, or even those still at the idea stage. We will list legal acts to simplify or revoke and submit this list to the Commission," Särav outlined.

Särav said the idea came from a meeting with European Commissioner for Trade Valdis Dombrovskis (Latvia). "We talked about what member states could do to support simplification efforts. He mentioned that Estonia's previous list had been very useful, and I promised to assemble a 'simplification club' and update that input," Särav said.

In addition to legal acts, the list will include principles that, in the club's view, Europe should follow more closely.

"For example, we could introduce a sunset clause in legal acts, meaning that once certain regulations are in place, they automatically expire unless a decision is made to extend them," Särav noted.

The group also plans to recommend harmonizing terminology and allowing data sharing.

Särav said: "We have one specific legal act regarding the sharing of tax data. The European directive states the data shared under this act cannot be used for any other purpose. However, in Estonia, we could improve statistics if we were allowed to share this data for other purposes as well."

Estonia is also calling for legal stability. "Let's provide businesses with a period of legal peace — let's not introduce new regulations for some time," she went on.

Särav pointed out that since 2019, the EU has introduced 13,000 new legal acts, compared with 3,000 for the US, while the EU's regulatory burden amounts to €300 billion.

"Our impact comes from reducing the regulatory burden. We haven't set a target to cut €100 billion from the €300 billion. The goal is specific—reduce the number of legal acts," Särav added.

Estonia has compiled a provisional list of legislation, while the economic affairs ministry is now waiting for input from other participating member states.
The plan is to present the list to the European Commission in May.

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