Evaluation and ex-post impact assessment at EU level

Briefing 14-09-2016

Evaluation is an exercise which aims to assess the outcomes and relevance of an intervention – be it a policy, a piece of legislation, a project, a spending programme or an international agreement – in the light of its initial objectives and expected effects. This assessment is based, as far as possible, on empirical information that has been collected and critically analysed - the evidence-base. Evaluation looks into direct as well as indirect impacts, including consideration of undesired side-effects. At EU level, evaluation has been used for decades to assess how well EU funds are spent in financial programmes. In the wake of the European Commission's Better Regulation agenda, the scope of the evaluation exercise has been broadened and it has now become a standard tool for assessing the performance of any policy intervention, looking into effects and seeking to identify evidence of causality between the intervention and its outcomes. As a result, in terms of overall aims, evaluation fosters transparency and accountability of EU action, policy coherence, as well as improved decision-making through policy learning.