In an attempt to staunch the tide of red tape, Patricia Hewitt, the Trade and Industry Secretary, and her EU counterparts will agree to simplify and abolish items of legislation, rather than multiplying and complicating them.

With the EU having produced 101,811 regulations since Britain joined in 1973, the scale of U-turn is small: just 15 directives will be affected — from an original list of 300 — and most are relatively arcane. But after years of talking about more flexible economies and doing nothing, the fact that any deregulation at all is taking place is seen by British diplomats as an historic turning point.

“We need concrete action rather than warm words, so we are pleased to see this first batch of regulations up for revision,” a British government spokeswoman said. “But this is just a start — we need to drive progress in this area.”

The rules being curbed by the EU Competitiveness Council cover industries from engineering to agriculture. Five directives relating to medical devices will be whittled down to two. Smaller companies will be exempted from certain accounting rules. Overlapping regulations for disposing of waste oils will be scrapped. Rules that EU officials admit “serve no obvious purpose” on hazardous waste will be abolished. Rules for transporting empty adhesive containers will be simplified because the EU has realised that they are not as dangerous as full containers.

Reporting requirements on the health and safety of workers will be reduced from annual to every six years. Companies will no longer be required to report the goods in which they trade in weight and volume — just one measurement will do.

So many directives apply to food and drink labelling — twelve for alcoholic drinks alone — that companies complain it is impossible to comply. This will be streamlined.

Victoria Carsons, of the Forum of Private Businesses, said. “These rules are intended for companies operating across borders, but the Commission must recognise that many small businesses just operate locally.”

The European Commission, the EU’s executive body, produces more than 3,500 rules every year. Although directives must be checked for their impact on the environment and on social exclusion, until last year only a third were checked for what impact they might have on the economy.

Tina Sommer, for the Federation of Small Businesses, said: “Simplification is a step in the right direction. Each regulation has an impact, and it is coming from all directions. It’s impossible to know them all — people just don’t know what to do. Too much is too much and we’ve reached too much.”

BURNING ISSUES

• There are 80,000 pages of EU regulations
• Between Britain joining the EU in 1973 and 2002, Brussels produced 101,811 regulations and directives
• The European Commission initiates between 3,500 and 4,000 new business regulations and directives a year
• Forty per cent of UK business regulations come from Brussels

Only 30 per cent of new regulations are assessed for what impact they have on business

Source: Federation of Small Businesses, House of Lords, European Policy Centre

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