Systematisation in European Risk Regulation

Abstract

This thesis explores the impact of the increasing role of systematisation in European law on the example of EU risk regulation as a reference area. It argues that systematisation in European law has a much wider impact than what is regularly perceived as rationalisation. It creates a new integration-method, which economises European law to an extend that it effects the state-making and society building in EU law. In this respect, it also contributes to the legitimacy of EU legal action and shapes the EU constitution. Risk regulation forms an ideal test case for this thesis as it has emerged in recent years from a sector-specific and reactive field of law to an increasingly coherent and autonomous legal system at European level, which follows its own rules and procedures. While within the two main regimes of risk regulation, which I call ‘new approach’ and ‘new governance’, systematisation developed at a different speed and under different circumstances, these concepts are increasingly merged at European level. When I talk about the technique of systematisation, however, this concept requires adjustment as to the features of European law. While systematisation has been a main feature of the state-making agenda of nation-states, the same technique of systematisation in the EU nowadays creates a common market. Hence, in the EU, systematisation is in the first sense a tool of economisation. This impact of systematisation of risk regulation falls also within the EU’s competence. Although the principle of proportionality may require adjustments according to under- and over-inclusiveness of individuals and groups within systematised EU law, the EU legal order requires such systematisation in principle.