Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics
1 total work
Why do the regulatory institutions of the EU look different across similar policy areas? Why do they work with different degrees of success? This book provides a theoretically driven comparison of two important areas of EU risk regulation. Whereas the functional demands for supranational risk regulation are similar in pharmaceutical and foodstuff regulation, the efficiency of the two respective regulatory regimes has differed widely during the last 15 years. The EU regulatory regime for pharmaceuticals has managed to establish a single market for highly innovative pharmaceuticals -- including 'red biotechnology'. In contrast, the single market for foodstuffs was shattered by the BSE crisis, and 'green biotechnology' -- that is, GMOs and Gen-Food -- is still highly contested. As this book demonstrates, these differences in the efficiency and legitimacy of EU risk regulation can be traced back to the different institutional designs of the respective regimes, which in turn result from different developmental paths.