Has Complexity of EU Law Increased?

The paper examines quantitatively whether the directives and regulations (DaRs) enacted in the European Union (EU) between 1990 and 2024 show signs of increased complexity. In total, a little over 1,7 thousand DaRs are examined based on snowball sampling. Nine metrics are used: a readability index and counts of articles, recitals, references, tokens, words, nouns, verbs, and adjectives. All except the readability index scores indicated increased complexity. With a caveat of fluctuations—complexity has not increased monotonically, the paper provides empirical evidence to enrich the quality of academic and political debates on the complexity of law and its consequences, including an alleged simplification need.