Regulating GMO Coexistence in the EU: Moving Beyond ‘Subsidiarity vs. Harmonization’ Towards Synergetic Governance
4th International Conference on Coexistence between Genetically Modified (GM) and Non-GM based Agricultural Supply Chains (GMCC’09), Melbourne, Australia, November 10-12, 2009
Posted: 17 Dec 2010
Date Written: November 2009
Abstract
This paper assesses the Commission’s strategy for regulating coexistence from procedural and substantive perspectives, applying analytical lenses of ‘multi-level’ and ‘reflexive/new governance’. It challenges ruling impressions of Member State-driven coexistence policy, by scrutinizing the discrepancy between the Commission’s formal reliance on subsidiarity-based diversity and its de facto practice of substantially circumscribing Member States’ broad legal mandate for national coexistence policies, signalling ‘re-Europeanization’ of coexistence-governance.
Recommendations are made towards ‘synergetic-governance’, combining national/regional flexibility with minimum EU-harmonization of the basic parameters for conceptualization and proportionality of coexistence, enhancing the legitimacy of subsidiarity-based coexistence policy in Europe, integrally with the overall agbiotech-regulation regime.
.
Keywords: EU law, EC policy, precauationary principle environmental policy, biotechnology, GMO, transgenic, risk regulation, safeguard ban, Renationalization, ECJ, comitology, WTO, trade, morality clauses, coexistence , multilevel governance, new governance
JEL Classification: K32, K33, K39, K23, K10, K13, K19, K00, O13, Q17, Q18
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation