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Mr President, good afternoon and thank you for joining us for today's college readout.

We're quite pressed for time, so we'll try to keep things moving to get to your questions as quickly as possible.

I'm pleased to be joined on stage by Commissioner Dombrovskis. Commissioner, the floor is yours.

Good afternoon and welcome to this college meeting readout.

Today we adopted the communication on a simpler, clearer and better enforced EU rulebook, which I will present very shortly.

We also exchanged views on the recommendation to establish a common framework for the EU age verification.

You will recall that President von der Leyen and Executive Vice President Virkunen first presented this two weeks ago.

This new recommendation will be presented by Executive Vice President Virkunen here in the Strasbourg press room tomorrow around 9:30 a.m.

Now let me outline 3 senior management transfers that we approved today in the interest of the service.

We decided to transfer Sabine Weyand as our class adviser in the Secretariat General.

We also transferred Ditte Juul Jørgensen to the role of Director General in Directorate General for Trade and Economic Security,

and finally, Slim Gower is being transferred to the role of Director General of the Directorate General for Energy.

The date of effect of these transfers is 1 June 2026.

You will find more details on these transfers in today's Daily News and on the Commission's press corner.

With that said, I will now move to the main topic of this press conference,

namely the Commission's proposal to modernize EU law making,

ensuring it is better aligned with the needs of citizens and businesses.

European and national rules play a crucial role in creating conditions for a competitive,

innovative and sustainable social market economy.

Since we took office, we have delivered an implementation and simplification agenda that is unprecedented in both scale and ambition,

with those goals in mind.

And today's communication is another key step forward.

It sets out an ambitious strategy to modernize how EU rules are designed, implemented and enforced,

because we cannot carry on with business as usual, we can and must do better. Brussels must deliver results, not just rules.

The way forward is based on concrete actions under 5 pillars set out in the communication. Firstly, simplicity by design.

Because it is always best to begin on the right footing, rather than having to change course later.

Our legislative activity must focus on areas where action is really needed and can make a real difference.

We are aiming at leaner, clearer and easier to implement rules with realistic implementation deadlines.

It should be crystal clear who must act, how to comply, and the consequences of non compliance.

We will also seek to make EU rules innovation and SME friendly and pursue full harmonization where needed to achieve a genuine single market with no national barriers.

We will work with Parliament and the Council to make these principles a reality. Secondly, strengthening the EU's better regulation system.

It is already recognized as one of the very best systems internationally,

but we can do even better.

Our next steps will enhance transparency, stakeholder engagement and efficiency.

A broader range of legislative initiatives will be accompanied by more pertinent impact assessments.

We are also setting out a more thorough pathway for urgent initiatives to ensure timely delivery,

underpinned by robust analysis.

We will optimize how we use consultation tools to seek diverse views and inputs.

We are asking Parliament and Council to also reflect better regulation principles and assess the impact of their substantial legislative amendments. Thirdly, regulatory deepening.

A bold new action plan on regulatory deep cleaning will bring order into stock of EU laws that have accumulated over time.

It will tackle fragmented rules, inconsistencies and overlapping provisions and reduce complexities.

These have hindered our competitiveness and innovation for too long, and it is time to fix that.

We will prioritize reviewing 12 areas in 2026 and 20.027 ranging from free movement of goods and services to housing to permitting just to give you some examples.

The action plan will result in legislative or other measures that will increase the coherence and simplicity of EU laws. Fourthly, gold plating.

This is where Member States have stricter or wider rules than required by EU legislation.

Gold plating creates barriers, raises costs and fragments the single market.

We need to detect and correct it, because more is not always better.

To do so, we will engage with Member States by providing best practices and guidance for the transposition and implementation of EU law,

and we will also step up enforcement in instances where gold plating is contrary to EU law.

5th and finally, faster and more robust enforcement.

Because EU rules only deliver their intended benefits for our people and businesses when Member States implement them correctly and on time.

This communication sets out a revamped enforcement approach based on faster procedures, more automaticity,

higher decisive penalties and a focus on reducing long standing cases across all areas of EU law.

We are also stepping up our work on enforcing the single market rulebook, in particular, with 11 focus areas.

Resolving this will remove barriers to the free movement of goods and services and freedom of establishment of businesses.

To conclude, in today's unpredictable and challenging world,

Europe must play to its strengths and sharpen its competitive edge.

Taken together, these actions mark a new level of ambition in the quality of EU lawmaking.

We are also determined to continue delivering on our ambitious implementation and simplification agenda.

Our regulatory deep cleaning will come on top of the simplification proposals already foreseen for this year in areas such as energy products,

taxation and citizens' rights.

I will stop here and look forward to your questions. Thank you. Many thanks, Commissioner. We'll take a few questions.

Please keep them on topic initially, and if we have time for off topic questions, we'll do so at the end. Please go ahead. Yes, thank you, Luis Guillermo with context.

A question, Commissioner, on the proposal from, the TDU CSU, parliamentary group in, in Germany which, today adopted a new proposal to indeed ask you to go even further and deeper in, simplifying rules,

notably suggesting to maybe reshape, the regulatory scrutiny board, expand its powers, and maybe also even scale back,

the, the workforce of the Commission to leave more, more space for national, enforcement. What do you make of these, suggestions? Thank you.

Yes, well, first of all, when we discuss the regulatory implementation and simplification, that is obviously a topic which brings large interest from a broad range of stakeholders and also lawmakers,

because that is one of the key work strands for our broader competitiveness agenda.

And many of the issues we are outlining in today's communication also, I would say,

go in the direction of asks of the CDCSC Group, as you mentioned.

For example, when we emphasize the need for the European Commission to exercise regulatory discipline and focus on areas where we really can deliver European value added, with full respect for the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality,

we also outline the possibility of using sunset clauses to ensure that rules and regulations,

which probably are no longer relevant,

do not linger on our overall rulebook and many other initiatives in this regard.

As regards enforcement, enforcing the EU role is obviously something we need to do at EU level,

and that is why we are Emphasizing this new stricter approach to enforcement,

with particular focus on enforcing the single market rulebook. Thank you, Commissioner.

Do we have other questions for the Commissioner here in the room? At the back, please go ahead.

Yes, it's Victoria Esser for your active, and I have a question related to the European Commission appointing a new trade and energy chief, and I was wondering,

it seems like Sabine Weyand has been downgraded and she has negotiated all big trade deals for the EU,

and I'm wondering what role will she now have and is the move anything to do with her public statements on the EU US trade deal. Thank you.

Well, as you know, in the European Commission, we are applying the principle of rotation of management, including senior management,

so this rotation of senior management is something which has been already anticipated for some time,

and this is what was outlined today,

or approved today in the College.

Specifically for Sabine Weyand, so she is now transferred as an O class adviser in the Secretariat General.

I would just add that you can find more details in the news item which we have just published on the European Commission website, so I would encourage you to have a look at that. Thanks very much.

Do we have other questions for Commissioner Dombrovskis?

I don't see hands raised in the room, I do not see hands raised online.

With that we draw our press conference to a close.

Thank you very much for your attention and have a good afternoon.