Private Regulation and Legal Integration: The European Example

Business and Politics. Volume 12, Issue 3, ISSN (Online) 1469-3569, DOI: 10.2202/1469-3569.1320, October 2010

42 Pages Posted: 9 Jan 2014 Last revised: 24 Nov 2015

See all articles by Fabrizio Cafaggi

Fabrizio Cafaggi

Independent

Agnieszka Janczuk-Gorywoda

Tilburg Law and Economics Center (TILEC); Tilburg University Law School

Date Written: October 1, 2010

Abstract

Private regulation has become a highly debated phenomenon. Previous research has focused mostly on the effectiveness, legitimacy, and governance structure of private regulators at the global level. Few existing analyses have focused on private regulation at the European level, where only questions of interest representation have attracted attention. Analyses of the contribution of private regulation to the process of European legal integration, in particular, are lacking. We seek to fill this gap. From private rules for product safety and for financial markets, such as the Single Euro Payments Area standards, to private rules governing the professions, we observe that private regulation has facilitated and accelerated European legal integration. We argue that in some cases this effect was anticipated, especially by the European Commission, and in those cases the intended effect on European legal integration at least partly explains the rise of private regulation. I other cases, it was an incidental by-product of attempts to address market failures or achieve network legitimacy. In the conclusion, we turn to questions of accountability and legitimacy raised by the increasing importance of private regulators in the Common Market of the EU. Although the EU lacks a body of rules that imposes democratic controls on private regulators, we identify components of European law that can be used as control mechanisms.

Keywords: private governance, private regulation, co-regulation, better regulation, legitimacy, IPE, regulation, standardization, standard setting organizations (SSOs), Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), European integration, New Approach, harmonization, accreditation, product safety, professional services

JEL Classification: K2, L5

Suggested Citation

Cafaggi, Fabrizio and Janczuk-Gorywoda, Agnieszka, Private Regulation and Legal Integration: The European Example (October 1, 2010). Business and Politics. Volume 12, Issue 3, ISSN (Online) 1469-3569, DOI: 10.2202/1469-3569.1320, October 2010, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2375799

Fabrizio Cafaggi

Independent ( email )

Agnieszka Janczuk-Gorywoda (Contact Author)

Tilburg Law and Economics Center (TILEC) ( email )

Warandelaan 2
Tilburg, 5000 LE
Netherlands

Tilburg University Law School ( email )

Tilburg, 5000 LE
Netherlands

HOME PAGE: http://https://www.tilburguniversity.edu/webwijs/show/?uid=a.a.janczuk

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