Estonia

Overview and recent developments

Estonia did not make any major changes to its regulatory framework in the past three years. In line with the “Guidelines for development of legislative policy until 2018” adopted in 2012, preliminary RIAs are prepared for all primary laws and selected subordinate regulations. For regulations with significant impacts, in-depth RIAs are conducted.

Estonia places a strong focus on accessibility and transparency of regulatory policy by making use of online tools. The online information system EIS tracks all legislative developments and makes available RIAs. Estonia currently works on an improved version of EIS. The interactive central website osale.ee displays all ongoing public consultations, but is not widely used and linkages to EIS could be strengthened. Later-stage consultation is conducted for all regulations. Public online consultations to inform officials about the nature of the policy problem and identify policy options are conducted in some cases.

Ex post evaluation is mandatory for some regulations since 2012. The completion of first evaluations is planned for 2018. Estonia could support the implementation of its ex post evaluation requirements by embedding stronger capacity to scrutinise the quality of ex post evaluations into the existing framework.

Institutional setup for regulatory oversight

The Legislative Quality Division of the Ministry of Justice takes the lead role in regulatory oversight in Estonia. It reviews the quality of RIAs and can return them for revision if their quality is deemed inadequate. The Division is also responsible for the systematic improvement and evaluation of regulatory policy. The Minister of Justice reports annually to parliament on the application of Better Regulation principles, including the compliance of RIAs and stakeholder engagement practices with formal requirements. The body also issues guidelines for RIA and scrutinises the legal quality of draft regulations. The Strategy Unit at the Government Office of Estonia complements this work by co-ordinating stakeholder engagement in policy making across government. The Legal and Research Department of the Estonian Parliament provides opinions and advice on the legal quality of draft laws at the request of parliamentary committees.

Requirements to use regulatory management tools for EU-made laws: Estonia
Stakeholder engagement		Regulatory impact assessment
Development stage
The government facilitates the engagement of domestic stakeholders in the European Commission’s consultation process	Yes
Negotiation stage
Stakeholder engagement is required to define the negotiating position for EU directives/regulations	Yes	RIA is required to define the negotiating position for EU directives/regulations	Yes
Consultation is required to be open to the general public	Yes
Transposition stage
Stakeholder engagement is required when transposing EU directives	Yes	RIA is required when transposing EU directives	Yes
The same requirements and processes apply as for domestically made laws	No	The same requirements and processes for RIA apply as for domestically made laws	No
Consultation is required to be open to the general public	Yes	RIA includes a specific assessment of provisions added at the national level beyond those in the EU directives	Yes
		RIA distinguishes between impacts stemming from EU requirements and additional national implementation measures	No
Source: Indicators of Regulatory Policy and Governance Survey 2017, http://oe.cd/ireg.

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