Notes from the period when White was Head of Unit for regulatory policy as well as a farewell collection from Michael Hardy, sometime Director of Telecoms Policy, which whom White worked closely on the EC-US telecoms procurement agreement. Also a file of papers given to White by Ernesto Previdi, sometime Head of Unit in DG III (Industry and Internal Market) which documents the evolution of the EC approach to product legislation and the global approach to testing and certification, approaches that emerged from the Cassis de Dijon judgement of the ECJ and which made possible the achievement of the internal market. Previdi was intimately involved in all these developments.

This series includes a number of interesting papers on the cost of regulation and the whole question of whether the Commission/EU regulates too much. Of particular interest is a paper on production regulation by the Member States, established on the basis of Member States' notifications under Directive 83/189, and which shows that, contrary to the noise coming from capitals, it was not the Commission, but the Member States that were the source of most of the regulation on products. Mr Gangemann decided not to put this out as a communication, but rather as a press release. It attracted less publicity than if it was issued as a communication, yet it drew an irritated response from the UK, and gradually penetrated the wider consciousness. The basis for much of the analysis involved thourough preparation, both through economic analysis and through consultation of interested parties, that had accompanied the excluded sectors directive in White's own work on public procurement. As a result of that work, and although many interests were opposed to regulatory proposals, the bien fondé of the Commission's ambition was never seriously questioned.