The European Commission concluded that member states cannot achieve objectives planned at the national, regional or local level, and thus the EU must introduce additional measures.

There may be many concerns and issues between member states involving infrastructure development as well as the provision of public services between neighboring countries, and removing these barriers would significantly improve the functioning of the EU's single market.

A study funded by the European Commission predicts that reducing current legal and administrative barriers by one-fifth would increase the GDP of border regions by 2 percent and help create more than one million jobs there. Hence, the Commission aims to establish a standardized procedure for resolving issues that would be uniform for all member states.

ELAK chair Liisa Pakosta (Eesti 200), however, considers this to be unnecessary bureaucracy.

"A resolution doesn't have to be reached, but it must be processed," Pakosta told ERR. "All procedures have to be compiled into a single register to boot – in other words, absolutely absurd bureaucracy."

"I'll give you an example that has also come up before," Pakosta explained. "In Latvia, there is the city of Valka, and there is a hospital located in Valga, meaning on the Estonian side. This hospital offers a lot more medical services than people would otherwise have access to in Valka. The issue is that someone from Latvia can't simply come to an Estonian hospital for everything just because, just as someone from Estonia can't simply go to a Finnish hospital for everything just because."

Differences in healthcare funding as well as various other important aspects come into play here, she noted.

"If that person from Latvia is now angry over why they can't get anything done at Valga Hospital, they'll submit a finely crafted petition in the specified form via the specified register, which the Estonian state must then process further," the committee chair continued. "So far, we've been handling this politely and in our own way."

She stressed that the procedure the Commission wants doesn't even need to go anywhere. "The point of the regulation is to harmonize the procedure itself, not achieving results," Pakosta said.

In order for documents to move in the correct formats and along the designated pathway, member states would have to establish intergovernmental coordination centers.

"In Estonia, someone can call a ministry, share their concern, and these are jotted down at the other end of the line, entered into a register and then a solution is sought for it," the Riigikogu committee chair said. "Here you don't have to precisely fill out a designated form and only then will the state engage with you. The European Commission's idea is that it isn't allowed to be easy; that there must be one uniform form across the EU, with the same type of contact points throughout the EU. This additional contact point would need to be established in Estonia, and for Estonia that would mean pointless additional work for officials."

The end result reached by the person with their concern would be exactly the same as it is now, meaning that the additional bureaucracy would not be a solution unto itself for their concern.

Issue hoped to be dropped by EP elections

According to Pakosta, the Riigikogu's standing European Union Affairs Committee has made its position clear: "Absolutely nothing in this draft regulation works, is reasonable, is necessary, is proportional, is expedient. So we're very much hoping that it will just fall off the table for good prior to the European Parliament elections."

On the one hand, the Commission has embarked on an initiative aimed at reducing bureaucracy by a quarter, the committee chair continued.

"However, if we look at the new drafts that are incoming, each one has some sort of new bureaucratic component involved," she said. "The mindset has become ingrained that if we do something, then we have to control it somehow, and in order to control it, we need standardized bureaucracy, standardized reporting. This doesn't provide any added value."

The European Parliament elections will be held in early June. The drafting of bills should conclude by the end of April, with some negotiations continuing beyond then – but these last few months need to be endured, Pakosta said.

--

Follow ERR News on Facebook and Twitter and never miss an update!