How to measure administrative simplification?

Administrative simplification is a central topic in current discussions on EU agricultural policy. It is also becoming more important in the evaluation of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

On 7 and 8 November 2024, the EU CAP Network organized a good practice workshop on perspectives and approaches in the assessment of administrative simplification. The goal was to inform administrations and evaluators about different approaches and methods and thus support the evaluation of the CAP 2023-2027. Around 90 participants from administration and evaluation gathered in Budapest.

Examples of the evaluation of administrative simplification from several Member States.  Stefan Becker and Regina Grajewski  from the Thünen Institute of Rural Studies were invited to present the implementation cost analyses that are part of the evaluation of rural development programs. These analyses are based on a comprehensive, survey-based approach to determine the administrative costs of implementing the entire program and individual measures (the latest report, on the rural development program 2014-2022 for North Rhine-Westphalia, can be found here).   

In addition, overarching topics were discussed in small groups (e.g.

the assessment of simplification through digitization). The results of the workshop will inform the network’s future work in support of the CAP evaluation. A summary will be published on the network website: eu-cap-network.ec.europa.eu/events/good-practice-workshop-assessing-simplification-cap-beneficiaries-and-administrations_en