Risk Regulation in the European Union: Between enlargement and internationalization

Abstract

The 2002-3 European Forum organized by the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies of the EUI dealt with regulatory cooperation and regulatory competition in an integrating world economy. Within this broad theme, a series of six seminars on risk regulation were held in the period January-March 2003. Although six seminars are hardly sufficient to cover a fast expanding field like risk regulation, I hope the reader will find the texts collected in this publication useful as an introduction to some of the key issues and concepts in this increasingly important area of EU regulation and international harmonization. Like few other policy areas, risk regulation requires a clear understanding of basic principles of decision-making under uncertainty—principles which cannot be ignored even by those who are interested in the legal, political or psychological aspects of risk rather than in technical risk analysis. Indeed, it could be argued that many current debates would be easily settled or at least reduced to their ultimate political dimension if only the participants understood the most elementary principles of coherent decision-making under uncertainty. These principles, and some of their policy and institutional implications, are the topic of the three first chapters of the present publication.