Gold-plating is a term relating to European Union law, used particularly in the UK.
Gold-plating refers to the practise of national bodies exceeding the terms of European Community directives when implementing them into national law. In the United Kingdom business lobbyists argue that the government and its agencies often tag additional measures on to the back of European Directives which place UK business at a competitive disadvantage in relation to other EU states where directives are implemented more literally.
In Italy, gold-plating has often been used a device to pass through controversial measures and ensuring a lower degree of parliamentary scrutiny, particularly in periods of weak governments.
EU governments committed themselves to a deregulation agenda at the Lisbon Summit in 2000, and as a consequence the European Commission has supported more maximum harmonisation measures in recent years, which effectively prohibit gold-plating.
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