Expertise in EU Governance: Evidence from Several Policy Areas

Abstract

Academic attention to the question of expertise in EU governance has focused on the issue mainly in terms of the institutional structure for expertise in general, by studying the EU’s system of expert groups, or by studying the issue in the particular policy context of issues of risk regulation. This panel goes beyond existing scholarship to offer an original approach to the study of expertise by acknowledging, in the first instance, that the use of expertise is by no means limited to areas of risk regulation, but instead spans the breadth of European activity. Furthermore, expertise is very diverse across policy areas. Indeed, the approach to, for instance, the use of scientific expertise in typical areas of risk regulation (such as food regulation or environmental policy) might be very different to, for instance, the use of statistical data in employment policy. In this panel we address questions around the creation, certification, use and impact of expertise in policy-making by studying very different areas of EU policy; namely, EU pesticides regulation, EU competition policy, EU social policy, and the OMC on employment. Grouping these four papers together in one panel invites a comparative consideration of both conceptual and institutional questions around expertise in EU governance.