Gold-plating is a term used to characterise the process whereby the powers of an EU directive are extended when being transposed into the national laws of a member state.
[1][2][3] In an operational study relating to the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development, the European Commission treats gold-plating as a source of interference with policy outcomes, defining gold-plating as "an excess of norms, guidelines and procedures accumulated at national, regional and local levels, which interfere with the expected policy goals to be achieved by such regulation".
[8] In Italy, gold-plating has often been used as a device to pass through controversial measures and to ensure a lower degree of parliamentary scrutiny, particularly in periods of weak government.
[citation needed] EU governments committed themselves to a deregulation agenda at the Lisbon Summit in March 2000,[9] and as a consequence, the European Commission has supported more maximum harmonisation measures in recent years, which effectively prohibit gold-plating.
Specifically, they stipulate that all EU legislation be reviewed every five years by "all departments...to ensure that they are only implementing the absolute minimum regulation necessary to comply".