On 27 October, Mr Jesús Casado, Secretary General of European Family Businesses (EFB) spoke to Mr Michael Hager, Head of Cabinet for Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis, Commissioner for Economy and Productivity at a debate hosted by the Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg. The topic of the debate was “Beyond the Omnibus: Simplicity by Design for a More Competitive Europe”.

During the discussion, Mr Casado highlighted the importance of the legislative simplification efforts made by the European Commission via the 12 EU Omnibus packages. He also reflected on his nomination to the Stoiber group (the High-level group on Administrative Burdens, which Mr Edmund Stoiber chaired in 2007, as an independent advisory group established by the European Commission) and EFB’s efforts on the topic of cutting red tape and reducing administrative burden for businesses in the EU.

Mr Casado asked concretely how the Commission plans to measure the impact of these simplification measures for companies and where the simplification agenda is headed. He emphasised the need to measure the extent to which family businesses feel the reduction of burden and how EFB can help with this effort.

EFB shared the message that we are here to continue calling for the reduction of administrative burden for companies and help to demonstrate the extent to which these measures are felt by businesses throughout this mandate.