New study shows urgent need to reform EU permitting
13 February 2024 - BusinessEurope today published the results of a new survey of companies across 21 European countries about their experiences with EU industrial permitting processes.
Commenting on the results, BusinessEurope President Fredrik Persson said: "In today’s very competitive global scene, speed is of strategic importance. Long and complex industrial permitting is a bottleneck for companies’ green and digital transformations and the EU’s global competitiveness.
For 83% of the companies surveyed, the complexity and duration of permitting processes are an obstacle to investing in Europe. They report challenges with public authorities – speed and lack of coordination – as well as complications and uncertainty around EU and national regulations.
Our key competitors, like the US and China, face challenges in this area as well, but they have specific provisions like time limits to help address some of these difficulties.
The EU has also taken steps in the right direction but more needs to be done.
The EU industry needs its ‘licence to transform’ at speed. Reforming industrial permitting across the EU must be high on the agenda during the next EU cycle.”
The top three actions that survey respondents wanted to see taken to improve and speed up EU permitting were:
- Time limits for the granting of permits by authorities (86%);
- Increased communication between companies and authorities (82%);
- Allowing an early start of projects/construction (79%).
Read the findings in full here.