Regulatory reporting is an integral element of making digital-ready legislation to achieve smoother implementation. It helps to monitor compliance of concerned stakeholders with a particular piece of legislation, hence serving as an important element in the policy making cycle. The concept is defined in more details below. Just like with other areas explored in this community, there is potential to streamline and improve regulatory reporting process in Europe to ensure better policymaking.  

Regulatory reporting is the periodical provision of structured or unstructured data (qualitative or quantitative) from concerned private and public organisations, to competent authorities (at EU or national level) as required by the requirements set in specific legislation.

It is a process, which entails the following main stages:

1. The setting of regulatory reporting requirements in a piece of legislation,
2. Data collection,
3. Data processing,
4. Data use and reuse.

These stages involve both the public administrations setting the requirements and those dealing with reported data, as well as the parties which will be submitting required data.

Why does it matter?

Regulatory reporting obligations for EU Member States and businesses stemming from EU legislation can be found in virtually every EU policy domain. Stakeholders are mandated to report data to demonstrate compliance with and successful implementation of EU legislation, in fields such as environmental obligations, health and safety concerns, and financial regulations, among many others. Reporting requirements appear in national law as well.

We observe that regulatory reporting obligations set in different policy fields and different administrative levels often lack a coordinated approach. Consequently, the obligations result in unnecessary administrative burden faced by those complying with the requirements set in a piece of legislation (i.e. submitting reporting data), in addition to those stemming from setting the regulatory requirements themselves. Evidence shows that there are recurrently overlapping regulatory frameworks, resulting in reporting parties having to submit the same piece of data more than once. Additionally, lack of clarity in the requirements oftentimes results in reporting parties submitting data in different formats, making it difficult to reuse and analyse.

At the same time, the use of emerging technologies can greatly support the streamlining of regulatory reporting process. Use of new approaches, such as artificial intelligence, sensor data or blockchain, to name a few, helps to make the reporting process more efficient. Such technologies can be applied throughout the entire regulatory reporting cycle, starting from the process of setting regulatory requirements to analysing and publishing gathered data, in turn providing better evidence for policy making. It is hence important to explore their potential.

In conclusion, it is key to raise awareness about the importance of streamlining regulatory requirements and making them more effective.

Useful resources on regulatory reporting

Find below useful resources and insights into regulatory reporting best practices, principles and lessons learnt from across various Directorates-General (DGs) of the Commission and policy fields.