Food Control Emergencies and the Territorialization of the European Union

Abstract:

This article addresses the response of European institutions to a series of food control emergencies: the BSE crisis of 1996, the dioxin scandal of 1999, and the introduction of an illegal genetically modified organism in 2005. The protection of European consumers from threats arising in the food chain has become a core value of the European polity and a basic function of its institutional apparatus. It is argued that in order to fulfil this function the European Union has become an increasingly territorial actor - one progressively more capable of applying control measures uniformly across its territory and of projecting its regulatory force upon an increasingly homogeneous geographical space.