Abstract
This chapter presents details on the institutional context in which EU food safety standards are made. It begins by giving an overview of the European regulatory context, which involves providing information on the various EU institutions and explaining how they manage to make regulatory decisions. The chapter also outlines the institutional characteristics of the WTO and explains how it has the potential to restrict the EU’s regulatory competences in policy areas that have implications for international trade. The key insight of this chapter is that food safety regulations—and in fact European policies in general—are made in a complex institutional system that provides access to numerous actors operating in three different arenas: in the individual member states, at the EU level, and at the international level. As a consequence of the multitude of actors, decision making in the EU is characterized by bargaining and compromise, which also affects how the precautionary principle is taken into consideration when (re-)designing food safety standards.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
This section is based on http://europa.eu/about-eu/index_en.htm (last retrieved on April 8, 2012).
- 3.
This list is not exhaustive but presents those institutions that are most important for the research interest of this book. For a comprehensive overview, see http://europa.eu/about-eu/institutions-bodies/index_en.htm (last retrieved on April 8, 2012).
- 4.
From 2014, a system known as double majority voting will be introduced. For a proposal to be adopted, it will need the support of two types of majority: a majority of member states (at least 15) and a majority of the total EU population (with member states in favor of the proposal representing at least 65% of the European population).
- 5.
For an overview of the cooperation between the EFSA and the competent authorities in the member states, see Abels and Kobusch (2010).
- 6.
This section is based on http://ec.europa.eu/codecision/stepbystep/text/index_en.htm (last retrieved on April 8, 2012).
- 7.
The Codex Alimentarius Commission is a consulting body to the FAO and the WHO. It aims to protect the health of the consumers and ensure fair food trade practices. For details on the relationship between the Codex Alimentarius Commission and the WTO, see Post (2006).
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Tosun, J. (2013). Review of the Regulatory Context. In: Risk Regulation in Europe. SpringerBriefs in Political Science, vol 3. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-1984-6_3
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