Harnessing eTools to Simplify and Strengthen EU Regulation

Digital tools are increasingly shaping how legislation is developed, implemented and evaluated across Europe. In a recent study for the European Parliament’s Scientific Foresight Unit (STOA), Ecorys and partners explored how “eTools”, including those powered by artificial intelligence (AI), can support more efficient, consistent and transparent regulation throughout the EU legislative cycle.

A growing ecosystem — with uneven progress

The study shows that the use of digital tools in legislative processes is expanding significantly. Across the EU and beyond, a wide range of tools already support policymakers – from platforms that analyse legislative developments to systems that assist in drafting and managing complex legal texts.

However, progress is uneven. Most tools focus on the early and middle stages of policymaking, particularly identifying regulatory needs and supporting the drafting of legislation, while far fewer solutions exist to support the evaluation of laws once they are in force.

This imbalance highlights a key opportunity: strengthening how policymakers assess whether legislation achieves its intended outcomes.

From ideation to evaluation: where eTools add value

By examining tools across the full legislative cycle (ideation, development, evaluation), the study identified several high-value functionalities:

Identifying policy needs and trends through analysis of large volumes of parliamentary and stakeholder data
Supporting legislative drafting with structured templates, automated checks, and collaborative platforms
Streamlining amendments and negotiations through summarisation, classification, and comparison tools
Enhancing evaluation and feedback loops, linking expected policy impacts with real-world outcomes

These applications can significantly improve efficiency, reduce administrative burden, and support evidence-based policymaking.

Unlocking the potential: key challenges

Despite this progress, the study finds that the main barriers to wider adoption are not technological, but structural.

In particular, fragmented and unstructured data, limited interoperability between systems, and a lack of common methodologies for monitoring and evaluation constrain the effective use of eTools.

At the same time, the increasing use of AI raises important considerations around transparency, reliability, and governance, highlighting the need for appropriate safeguards and human oversight.

A roadmap for smarter regulation

Based on these insights, the study proposes a set of policy directions to help unlock the full potential of eTools:

Prioritising high-impact functionalities based on user needs
Strengthening monitoring and evaluation frameworks
Investing in structured, interoperable legal data
Supporting cross-country collaboration and interoperability
Developing clear guidance on AI use in legislative processes

Taken together, these steps would enable a more coherent and future-proof approach to digitalising policymaking across the EU.

Looking ahead

The findings underline a central message: while digital tools already offer significant opportunities to improve the quality and efficiency of regulation, realising their full value depends on strong data foundations, institutional alignment and responsible adoption.

As EU institutions and Member States continue to modernise their regulatory processes, eTools can play a critical role – not only in simplifying legislation, but also in ensuring it remains coherent, effective and responsive to societal needs.

Read the full study to explore the analysis, case studies and policy recommendations in more detail: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/pt/document/EPRS_STU(2026)774725