Effective Governance Designs Of Food Safety Regulation In The Eu

This book provides insights on regulatory effectiveness in the field of food safety, by focusing on the variety of institutional factors affecting regulatory outcomes. Drawing upon the Institutional Analysis and Development framework, it investigates differences in effectiveness of food safety regulation and explains them by differences in domestic governance designs, by applying Qualitative Comparative Analysis. The empirical focus of the book is the food safety governance designs of 15 EU Member States, which are investigated through the collection of an original dataset inclusive of measures of independence and accountability of the domestic food safety agencies, of policy capacity and of food safety delivered. The results show the prominent role of the institutional dimension of policy capacity in producing regulatory effectiveness, in conjunction with an integrated model of distribution of the regulatory tasks. As to ineffective governance, the conjunction of low independence or low accountability with low institutional capacity produce ineffective responses.

Recent advances in agri-food technology have brought increasing complexity and emerging challenges to food safety regulation and governance, with many countries greatly divided in their regulatory approaches. As more advanced CRISPR-based gene-editing technologies and novel foods such as cloned animal products, non-traditional plants, nanofood, and plant-based meat are rapidly being developed, debates arise as to whether the existing models of governance require revision to ensure consumer safety. Of equal importance is the extensive use of pesticides, additives, and animal drugs, which raise concerns over the methods and approaches of government approval and phasing out of potentially risk-causing chemicals. Heightened public criticism of food safety and technology poses a signifi cant challenge to governments around the world, which struggle to strike a proper balance between technocracy- and democracy-oriented risk governance models. Drawing on expertise from the United States, European Union, Japan, China, Korea, Association of South East Asian Nations, Malaysia, and Taiwan, this book explores existing and emerging issues of food law and policy in the context of technology governance to offer an overarching framework for the interaction between food regulation and technology. It will be essential reading for academics, students, and practitioners with an interest in food law and policy, agricultural law and policy, and food safety and nutrition studies.

The past decade has seen the regulation of food safety within the European Union face unprecedented challenges, such as BSE, the contamination of food with dioxins, and the increasing occurrence of infectious agents like Salmonella, as well as the emergence of new products and technologies (genetically modified food) and a heightened sensitivity of the public towards biotechnology and animal welfare. As a consequence, most European countries and the EU institutions have witnessed major reforms to their regulatory systems on food safety, often characterised by a stricter separation of the scientific and political components of risk analysis, a reference to the precautionary principle and a stronger commitment to the principles of transparency, participation and accountability. Against this background, this book investigates the legal and institutional structures of food safety regulation and their recent developments in France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, Hungary, and at the EU level. The choice of countries is intended to shed light on the different ways in which European systems of food safety regulation have been affected by major food scares: where France, the UK, Germany, and the EU were the main actors in the 1996 BSE crisis, Sweden was left untouched, and Hungary entered the EU only after the outbreak of the crisis. In addition, the book provides insights into how the various actors perceive the practical functioning of these systems. Special attention is given to how the different regulatory frameworks address challenges related to scientific uncertainty and socio-political ambiguity, the interaction of different levels of governance, and the principles of good governance. On the basis of these findings, the book aims to identify commonalities and differences between the various systems. In this way, it seeks to understand the main challenges that the current systems of food safety regulation in Europe, in particular the EU system, face so as to offer a solid basis for rethinking these structures.

This book analyses EU food law from a regulatory, economic and managerial perspective. It presents an economic assessment of strategies of food safety regulation, and discusses the different regulatory regimes in EU food law. It examines the challenges of food safety in the internal market as well as the regulatory tools that are available. The book’s generic theorising and measurement of regulatory effects is supplemented by detailed analysis of key topics in food markets, such as health claims, enforcement strategies, and induced risk management at the level of the organizations producing food. The regulatory effects discussed in the book range from classical regulatory analysis covering e.g. effects of ex-ante versus ex-post regulation and content-related versus information-related regulation to new regulatory options such as behavioral regulation. The book takes as its premise the idea that economic considerations are basic to the design and functioning of the European food supply arena, and that economic effects consolidate or induce modification of the present legal structures and principles. The assessments, analyses and examination of the various issues presented in the book serve to answer the question of how economic theory and practice can explain and enhance the shaping and modification of the regulatory framework that fosters safe and sustainable food supply chains. ​ ​

working mechanisms and to develop the overall governance framework in which we operate. Catherine Geslain-Lanéelle Executive Director European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) Parma, March 2008 Acknowledgements This book and the General Framework for the Precautionary and Inclusive Governance of Food Safety that it presents and critically discusses have grown out of research undertaken within one of the subprojects (work package 5) of the research project SAFE FOODS, ‘Promoting Food Safety through a New Integrated Risk Analysis Approach for Foods’. The Integrated Project SAFE FOODS has been funded by the European Commission under the 6th Framework Programme (April 2004 to June 2008) and coordinated by Dr H.A. Kuiper and Dr H.J.P. Marvin of RIKILT-Institute of Food Safety at the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands. Subproject 5 of SAFE FOODS has dealt with institutional aspects of food safety governance with a focus on ways (procedural and structural mec- nisms) to improve the implementation of precaution, participation and a politi- science interface, and has been coordinated by the editors of this book. The General Framework and this book have been a collaborative effort of subproject 5 in which all contributors to the first part of this book were involved. We have very much appreciated this exceptionally fruitful cooperation. It has always been both greatly intellectually inspiring (with many intensive, focused discussions) and very pleasant (highly cooperative and reliable).

After several food scandals in the past decades, regulatory regimes in food safety have been reformed on the level of the European Union and in most EU member states. In most countries, independent agencies have been created and mainly perform tasks in risk assessment. In our contribution, we focus on national institutional choices concerning these agencies in all 27 member states and ask whether or not these choices can be explained by path dependency or rather as a phenomenon of Europeanization at the national level. Based on a survey of all national regimes and the EU level we can observe some trends that require further scholarly studies. The main feature is that there are two dominant agency models in food safety governance: either a separation of risk assessment from risk management or an integrated model. The first one is a new development triggered by soft Europeanization effects, which are due to functional requirements and learning effects. Furthermore, these agencies have a more or less central role within the emerging network between the European Food Safety Authority EFSA and the national competent authorities.

This volume presents the viewpoints of academics, food lawyers, industry and consumer representatives as well as those of EU policymakers on the first ten years of activity of one of the most prominent European agencies. Its broader purpose, however, is to discuss the future role played by EFSA within the rapidly-evolving area of EU food law and policy. By revisiting and discussing the milestones in the history of EFSA, the collection provides forward-looking views of food leaders and practitioners on the future scientific and regulatory challenges facing the European Union. In particular, by presenting a critical assessment of the agency’s activities within its different areas of work, the book offers readers a set of innovative tools for evaluating policy recommendations and better equips experts and the public to address pressing regulatory issues in this emotive area of law and policy. Despite its celebratory mood, the book’s focus is more about the future than the past of EU food law and policy. Each chapter discusses how EFSA’s role has evolved and identifies what it should have done differently while presenting an overall assessment of how the agency has discharged its mandate.

Animal cloning, nanotechnology, and genetic modifications are all examples of recent controversies around food regulation where scientific evidence occupies a central position. This book provides a fresh perspective on EU scientific food safety governance by offering a legal insight into risk analysis and the precautionary principle, positioned as general principles of EU food law. To explain what the science-based requirement means in EU multi-level governance, this book places these principles in the legislative dynamics of the EU internal market and the meta-framework of the international trade regime established by the WTO. Numerous examples of the case-law of European Courts show implications of risk analysis and science-based food law for EU and national decision makers, as well as food businesses. This book focuses on the crucial aspects of the risk analysis methodology. It redefines the precautionary principle and clarifies its scope of application. It analyses the extent to which non-scientific factors, such as consumers' risk perception, local traditions or ethical considerations, can be taken into account at national and EU level. This book argues that, compared to EU institutions, the autonomy allocated to national authorities is much more limited, which raises questions about the legitimacy of food safety governance in the EU.

This article contributes to the debate on technocratic governance in the European Union. It examines the relationship between scientific expertise and policy-making in the foodstuffs sector and scrutinises the hypothesis that the European Commission follows a technocratic model in the food safety regulation, and that this model is applied to the new European food law. To this end, a typology is developed to distinguish between decisionist, technocratic and reflexive governance. Interestingly, the findings of this article suggests that there is not only a shift from technocratic toward decisionist but also to reflexive governance. To some extent, this change can also be observed in the general debate on European governance. In conclusion it is argued that tensions arise between the three ideal-type models of scientific expertise for policy-making, and that the European model is contested by the international level.