Cyprus
Overview and recent developments
The comprehensive Action Plan for improving the regulatory framework in Cyprus was approved by the Council of Ministers in October 2015. The plan includes the promotion of impact assessment of new legislation, better consultation practices, and administrative simplification.
Stakeholder engagement does not always currently occur at an early stage of policy development — which is generally to identify the nature of the public policy problem and inform discussions about possible solutions, including non-regulatory ones — in Cyprus. The Consultation Guidelines issued in December 2016 presents best practices on consulting early. Consultation at a later stage of policy development is undertaken for both primary laws and subordinate regulations, and participants’ views are made public. Although regulators are required to take feedback into account, they are currently not required to respond to participants’ comments making it difficult for participants to see how their input has helped shaped regulatory proposals.
Regulatory impact assessment (RIA) is required for all regulatory proposals relating to both primary laws and subordinate regulations. Although Cyprus introduced a new RIA framework in September 2017, a number of gaps remain. The impact assessment system could be improved by adopting a more proportionate approach to regulatory proposals, considering a broader range of costs and benefits, and establishing an oversight body for RIA quality control.
Ex post evaluation of laws and regulations is currently not undertaken in Cyprus.
The Unit for Administrative Reform of the Presidency was established pursuant to the Council of Ministers Decision 77.561 of 2014 to assist the Deputy Minister to the President in implementing the Action Plan, and is responsible for the overall better regulation agenda in Cyprus. However, the Unit has no powers of oversight in relation to the use of regulatory management tools. The Public Administration and Personnel Department of the Ministry of Finance has recently taken responsibility for the implementation of the Better Regulation Agenda.
To date, no evaluations have been conducted in Cyprus to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of any of its regulatory management tools. In May 2018 however, the first RIA Annual Implementation Report was published. Its purpose was to present quantitative and qualitative data for the first year of implementation of the new RIA framework.