EU Risk Regulation

Every day EU institutions and agencies make decisions about how to regulate the various risks that threaten the well-being of EU citizens. In this way the EU has produced an imposing and exponentially growing body of legislation intended to protect health, safety and the environment, although this was never really a planned development. Originally seen as a neo-functional spill-over from the internal market project, this body of legislation, collectively known as risk regulation, attests to the EU's gradual shift from mere market-creation to authentic polity-building. By combining concepts, theories and ideas that belong to different disciplines interested in risk together with EU Law, this book offers an introduction to the emerging law and policy of EU risk regulation. After laying down theoretical foundations for the study of risk regulation, it provides a systematic analysis of the institutional and substantive dimensions of EU risk regulation and, more than sectoral studies can do, hence offers a realistic account of the evolution and characterisation of the EU's involvement in citizens' daily lives. EU Risk Regulation fills a niche in European legal, policy and regulation studies and will be essential reading for scholars and professionals working in academia, legal practice and public administration.