Grayling Central & Eastern Europe (CEE)’s Public Affairs Practice Group published its first AcTrend Report. The report scrutinises laws passed in six Central & Eastern European (CEE) countries - Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia - between 1 August 2013 and 1 August 2014.
The AcTrend report also provides an overview on the political environment and outlook on governments’ activities across the region. Grayling's Public Affairs team used publicly available data (mainly parliamentary websites) for the research and the report covers acts of Parliament only.
In six CEE markets, 891 acts were approved between 1 August 2013 and 1 August 2014. The most active countries were Romania, where 257 acts were passed (a significant proportion of which were related to international treaties), Poland (178) and Hungary (153).
Out of all 891 acts, 386 had a direct impact on business: almost a third of these impacted the business sector in general (31%). Out of the sector-specific laws, the largest amount of acts were approved for the financial services (24%) and services (14%) sectors.
Every fifth law (20.7%) generated significant media coverage in the region. Hungary and Bulgaria scored the highest in this regard (44% of approved acts in both countries), while Poland (11%) and Slovakia (10%) were at the bottom of the list.
43% of the approved acts (386 out of 891) had a direct impact on business, while almost a third of the approved acts affected the business sector in general (31%). Out of the sector-specific laws, the largest amount of acts approved was in the financial services (24%) and services (14%) sectors. ICT, industry and healthcare were among the least impacted sectors across the region.
Interestingly, even though governments introduced 79% of acts related to the business sector, 19% of them were submitted by MPs. Bulgarian and Hungarian MPs turned out to be the most productive in terms of bill submissions. In Bulgaria, the cabinet wasn’t able to practice its majority power during the term of PM Plamen Oresharski. The most important legislative proposals were submitted by MPs. In Hungary, the government prefers avoiding public debate on certain bills, making them introduced by MPs rather than the government, allowing the use of a loophole and thus skipping the mandatory discussion with interest groups and other stakeholders.
Gergely Ábrahám, Head of Public Affairs Practice Group of Grayling in CEE, commented: “In [Bulgaria] we can foresee the introduction of significant new acts in the first half of 2015, especially in the areas of real estate, the mortgage market, tourism and sport policy, social housing, entrepreneurship and combating the shadow economy.
“As for Hungary, the real regulatory work began after the municipal elections held in mid-October. The submission and then withdrawal of the Internet tax proposal created serious tensions in terms of politics.
“In Poland, the upcoming months can forecasted to be intense in terms of legislation, but no extensive policy changes are expected.
“The year of elections is likely to be costly for the Romanian economy in 2015, since the government will need to compensate for the reduced budgetary revenues with further tax increases”.