Regulating Europe under Uncertainty: Integrating Conception and Execution through Recursive Joint Governance

Long recognized as a global model, EU regulation is coming under increasing pressure, both from without and from within, as a drag on the Union’s competitiveness and innovative capacity, which may endanger its geopolitical security. But the evidence for such claims, as this paper will show, is surprisingly thin. At the same time, moreover, EU regulation has been rapidly evolving in novel ways that enhance the Union’s capacity to address longstanding problems and tackle new challenges. Key to these transformations are new forms of recursive joint governance between EU institutions, Member States, and regulated entities, which facilitate rapid updating of rules and procedures in the face of rising uncertainty through closer integration of conception and execution. Focusing on EU agencies and regulatory networks responsible for product and market regulation in domains such as medicines, aviation, energy, finance, competition, and food safety, the paper will show how they have developed innovative methods of catastrophe avoidance and crisis response, which compare favorably to those of their US counterparts.