EU expert bodies in light of the glyphosate saga and the Dieselgate scandal – Cross-sectoral lessons to be learned in the era of emerging risk factors and constant crisis management?

Szegedi, László (2023) EU expert bodies in light of the glyphosate saga and the Dieselgate scandal – Cross-sectoral lessons to be learned in the era of emerging risk factors and constant crisis management? EURÓPAI TÜKÖR: AZ INTEGRÁCIÓS STRATÉGIAI MUNKACSOPORT KÉTHAVONTA MEGJELENŐ FOLYÓIRATA. ISSN 1416-6151 (In Press)

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Abstract

Parallel to the expansion of the European Union’s (EU) competencies, the involvement of high-level experts intensified in the EU’s decision-making, especially in executive decision-making, which led to the creation of diverse models of expert bodies within the European Union. This process intensified in formulating and reformulating technical norms, policy documents, and further soft law sources related to EU legislative acts, as being highly relevant in creating the single market's harmonized regulation. In a broader context, the technocratic decision-making of the EU, epistemic as well as democratic worries about these processes, increased debates on the subjective and politicized science in academia. 2 Several scandals shed light on the eroding capacity and legitimacy of the Single Market’s scientific decision-making in the current era of constant economic, environmental, and societal challenges when the need for solid science has never been greater.3 A sector-specific nature still characterizes the EU law and the Single Market competencies. Yet, the emerging relevance of the EU law’s horizontal evolution with the Commission’s green and digital transition plan, or the Charter of Fundamental Rights-based cross-sectoral interpretation of the CJEU,4 inevitably leads us to the issue of cross-sectoral elements of EU expert bodies and scientific decision-making. The purpose of this paper is threefold: (i) to describe the evolution of EU expert bodies with the comparison of two relatively diverse policy areas of the EU’s food sector and transportation, which are similarly characterized by the scandals of the glyphosate saga and the Dieselgate scandal; (ii) to explore the sector-specific elements of the scientific decision-making of these policy areas, while potentially identifying some cross-sectoral lessons to be learned (iii) to offer some further elements due to be adapted to other EU policy areas in light of the recent reforms of the food sector and transportation.

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