Unpacking the Mechanisms of the EU ‘Throughput’ Governance Legitimacy: The Case of EFSA

Abstract

The proliferation of European Union (EU) agencies, referred to as agencification phenomenon, constitutes a significant EU institutional innovation. Agencification aimed to provide information, promote efficiency, decrease politicisation and generate standards based on specialised technical knowledge. However, the expanded role of EU agencies in regulatory policy-making has raised legitimacy questions, particularly in times of crisis and scandals. The legitimacy of agencies has been extensively studied with regard to input, and output (efficiency) legitimacy criteria. Instead, drawing on Schmidt's (2013) work this article claims that in order to assess the overall legitimacy of the EU regulatory governance through agencies, the ‘throughput’ criterion needs to be considered. Although important, the ‘input’ (politics) and ‘output’ (policy) criteria fail to capture what happens within the actual governance (process), between the decisions and the outcomes. Examples from the EU food regulatory governance through the European Food Safety Authority, a particularly technical and scientific policy area, illustrate how the ‘throughput’ mechanisms operate. While the absence of one of the throughput mechanisms delegitimises the regulatory governance of food, their simultaneous presence contributes to overall legitimacy of governance.

Key words:

• Agencification
• governance
• legitimacy
• input
• output
• throughput

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the Mistra Biotech research programme and Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences for funding the primary research for this article. A previous version of the article has been presented at the European Consortium for Political Research organized by the Regulatory Governance Standing Group in Spain June, 2014. I would particularly like to thank Chris Ansell, Vivien Schmidt, Kostas Karantininis, the Globalisation and Europeanisation research group at Roskilde University and the anonymous referees for their insightful comments and suggestions.

Notes

1 Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or ‘mad cow’ disease emerged in Britain in 1996 and led to EU banning of exports of British beef.

2 Enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli outbreak in the North of Germany and in the Bordeaux region in France (May–July 2011).

3 Dioxin contamination of Belgian food products via PCB-contaminated feed (1999) restricted the intra- and extra-community trade of dairy and meat products.

4 Horsemeat present in frozen beef burgers (March 2013) discovered by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland.

5 Yet, in the case of food, the management remained under the Commission.

6 The first generation consisted of the agencies that were established in the 1970s, with the second being the ones established in the 1990s.

7 http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/health_consumer/sdg/members_en.htm

8 http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/health_consumer/dgs_consultations/consultative_groups_en.htm

9 In the WP it is argued that ‘the transfer of regulatory powers to EFSA could lead to “unwarranted dilution of democratic accountability” and would also require EC Treaty modifications.

10 The Amflora potato is produced by BASF, a German company, and features a genetically altered starch composition.

11 InterviewCO, 2014

12 InterviewGR1, 2013

13 http://www.corporateeurope.org/printpdf/989

14 The EP challenged the budget of the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) and the European Environment Agency (EEA), under the so-called discharge, as a warning to restore their credibility http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/05/european-parliament-rebukes.html and http://www.corporateeurope.org/pressreleases/2012/european-parliament-postpones-efsa-budget-approval-over-conflicts-interest.

15 Milieu is a consultancy company on international and European law and policy, specialising in toxicology and chemical safety with wide experience in the area of chemicals regulation in Europe as well as internationally and conducted the evaluation report for EFSA.

16 www.gmwatch.org

17 http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php/news/archive/2011/13260-efsa-s-defence-of-its-independence-reveals-another-conflict-of-interest.

18 InterviewEM, 2014

19 InterviewEM, 2014

20 InterviewCO, 2014

21 InterviewMP, 2014

22 http://www.foeeurope.org/sites/default/files/news/foee_background_maize1507_short.pdf

23 http://sustainablepulse.com/2014/02/11/eu-approves-gm-maize-1507-despite-rejection-19-countries/-U5WJ9vmSzs4

24 http://www.europeanmovement.ie/just-the-facts-horse-meat/

25 http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-13-109_en.htm

26 Interview, CEO and EFSA homepage transparency strategy http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/values/transparency.htm?wtrl=01

27 http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/keydocs/docs/independencepolicy.pdf

28 In October 2013 EFSA launched a conference on transparency that aimed to set the guidelines on its transparency policy http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/values/transparency.htm?wtrl=01

29 InterviewCOR, 2014

30 InterviewCOR, 2014

31 InterviewSC, 2012

32 InterviewCOR, 2014