Abstract

Since the Treaty, environmental policy has been characterized by solid political expansion and EU environmental legislation has grown from a few dozen laws in the 1970s to over 400 laws. The criticism for the excessive burden by companies has led the EU Commission to launch a decisive policy dismantling campaign. After the reconstruction of the dismantling process initiated by the EU, the paper aims to analyze the simplification process carried out by the national government and to understand how the regions have implemented this policy. Some evidence shows that the outcomes of the dismantling policy have led to a policy expansion or to the adoption of an «inertial» policy by the regions, causing the simplification process initiated by the EU to fail.