Weekend Read: EU Study Reveals Citizen Distrust Due To European Law Being Too Complicated to Follow

Welcome to the Weekend Read on November 1, 2025. This episode explores why European Union (EU) law, which is made to be applied by its users, is often ineffective and difficult to follow, even for the citizens it is meant to serve. A critical study, commissioned by the European Parliament’s Policy Department for Justice, Civil Liberties and Institutional Affairs at the request of the Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI), exposes the adverse effect of legislative complexity on the application of EU law. This complexity stems from several factors, including the growing length of legislative proposals, which under the current Commission have reached an average of 8,582 words, and the increasing number of technical provisions and EU acts. For the fundamental users—EU citizens—this complexity means they do not understand and do not know the law, preventing them from fulfilling obligations or enjoying the rights it offers. The resulting inaccessibility of the law injures the rule of law and democracy in the EU, and creates far-reaching consequences, including hurdles to the trust and loyalty of EU citizens towards the EU as an ideal and an organization.The core issue lies not just in the complex laws themselves, but in how their application is monitored. The European Commission’s current monitoring of EU law is criticized for being partial, formalistic, and ineffective, often relying on "box-ticking exercises" rather than substantive analysis of effectiveness. Crucially, the Commission’s monitoring is deficient and incomplete because it persistently ignores the parameter of legislative complexity. Furthermore, simplification efforts focus almost exclusively on competitiveness and companies, actively excluding EU citizens and their understandability needs from the simplification agenda. The study advocates for a necessary reform of this monitoring process, requiring a shift to a qualitative, in-depth evaluation of complexity. This reform must include scrutinizing EU Acts against a citizen-centred legislative style, using "easified language and the layered structure" to effectively communicate regulatory messages to all three legislative audiences: citizens, Member States, and institutions.Source: European Parliament: Directorate-General for Citizens’ Rights, Justice and Institutional Affairs and Xanthaki, H., Legislative complexity and monitoring the application of EU law, Publications Office of the European Union, 2025, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2861/4735769