Regulatory politics in the enlarging European Union: weighing civic and producer interests

Book abstract:

This volume evolved from a project carried out for the Economic and Social Research Council under its Single European Market Research Programme. The original study was designed to look at several cases of market making within the EU and some of the impacts on associated neighbours. It details the variety of European regulatory politics, including case studies on transport, the environment and consumer protection which illustrate the efforts made to include the concerns of the various social actors alongside those of the industries involved.

The book looks at three questions in particular: how the regulatory process has been accompanied by a familiar, yet new style of politics; how European regulation has evolved in the face of changing economic and political conditions; and how its territorial reach has spread beyond the original grouping of west European countries. After an initial introduction covering regulatory politics in the EU, the authors examine efforts to curb vehicle pollution, the common transport policy, consumer interests in the single market, the impact of the single European market on the EU's various European neighbours and how this has impacted upon the enlargement process, and finally market integration and civic interests.

The authors argue that, through the lens of regulation, not only are product markets defined, but a variety of societal and political dimensions are incorporated. Although the regulatory politics of the EU does not aggregate the full range of interests and opinions, the openness of the process to the accommodation of interests wider than those of just the producer makes the process more rounded than might be imagined, and more similar to domestic politics than might be thought achievable in an international institution. This analysis of the single European market should prove particularly useful to students and researchers in European politics.