Regulating for Innovation? Insights from the Finnish Presidency of the Council of the European Union

Taffoni, Gaia

doi:10.1017/err.2020.7

Cited by 3 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…For example, in the 2000s the Netherlands and the UK wanted to establish targets for the reduction of administrative burdens, whilst the European Commission preferred a wider system of regulatory indicators (Radaelli, 2020 ). These days the Council and the European Commission do not have the same position on the innovation principle (Taffoni, 2020 ). The OECD is engaged in a better regulation 2.0 project, showing that this organization is aware of the need to raise questions about the vision and the tools of this reform agenda.…”

Section: Better Regulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Occupy the semantic space! Opening up the language of better regulation

Radaelli

2023

Journal of European Public Policy

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Policy agendas are often cast in semantic constructions that portray them as universally desirable outcomes. These semantic constructions protect and reinforce the power of dominant coalitions and make it hard to pursue alternatives. The semantic space is entirely occupied by the dominant concepts. At the same time, within the dominant coalition, ideational conflict is muted by decontesting concepts. Drawing on political theory, I show the presence of this double act of reducing the semantic space and decontesting concepts with the case of ‘better regulation’. Then I briefly extend the argument to other terms such as policy coherence, agile governance, smart cities and social value judgements. The critical discussion of the implications of dominant language brings in transparency, allows other coalitions to articulate their vision in a discursive level-playing-field, and offers citizens the possibility to discuss what is really ‘better’ and ‘for whom’.

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Section: Better Regulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Occupy the semantic space! Opening up the language of better regulation

Radaelli

2023

Journal of European Public Policy

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“…In the last few years, the innovation principle has made progress in the EU institutions. It was officially discussed and endorsed by the Council of Competitiveness Ministers (Council of the EU 2016) and embraced by the 2019 Finnish Presidency high-level conference on innovation (Taffoni 2020). On 27 February 2020 the Competitiveness Council adopted Conclusions endorsing the innovation principle (reiterating the 2016 EU Council Conclusion), calling on the Commission to further determine its use (Council of the EU 2020).…”

Section: The Pillars Of Herculesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although the European Commission is not unconditionally persuaded by the innovation principle (Taffoni 2020), it has been open to a softer formulation of innovation as political priority. In Better Regulations for Innovation-Driven Investment (European Commission 2016) the Commission describes how flexible rules can encourage innovation -the 'regulation as driver of innovation' perspective mentioned above.…”

Section: The Pillars Of Herculesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…And here we are today with the regulatory responses to Covid-19 (Alemanno 2020) and their balancing acts between public health and the economy, and between using regulation for innovation (Taffoni 2020) or adopting a more precautionary approach to deliver on sustainability. The dilemma is how to foster responsible innovation whilst at the same time exercising precaution (Ford 2017;Von Schomberg and Hankins, 2019).…”

Section: Precaution Versus Innovation: Populism Versus Technocracy?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Foundations of Regulatory Choice: Precaution, Innovation … and Nonviolence?

Baldoli¹,

Radaelli²

2021

JCER

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Two foundations of regulatory choice, precaution and innovation, co-exist in the political system of the European Union (EU). At the conceptual level the two foundations are complementary, and are both endorsed by the EU institutions, albeit in different ways and with different legal status. In the real-life of EU policymaking processes, however, precaution and innovation often become the terrain of polarised views anchored to technocratic or populist positions that erode trust in EU governance. We propose a way forward to this state of play. Instead of seeing the two foundations as opposite, we explore their dyadic relationship. We show that a conversation between the two is possible via an original reformulation of precaution and innovation. The reconciliation of precaution and innovation, we argue, is effective only in a context of social trust about the reconciled definitions. We propose the analytical and normative framework as seal of social trust. Nonviolence can assist the EU and its citizens in the path towards innovation that is socially responsible, future-proof and accountable, and enhance precaution as internalised commitment of decision-makers as well as scientific and social communities.

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“…Such principles include ‘think small first’ (focusing on small and medium enterprises), mainstreaming EU action in pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals, ‘digital by default’ (advancing the EU’s ‘digital transition’ policy), operationalising the European Green Deal pledge to ‘do no significant harm’ to environmental objectives, and integrating ‘strategic foresight’ into decision-making [ 23 , 33 ]. Of particular note here is the innovation principle which commits the EU to systematically consider impacts on firms’ “capacity and incentives to innovate” [ 23 ] when developing policy [ 40 , 41 ]. Favoured by corporate actors, this principle is often presented as ‘complementary’ to the precautionary principle [ 42 ], which posits that risk management action should be taken despite scientific uncertainty if there are reasonable grounds to anticipate serious or irrevocable impacts on human or planetary health, and is widely recognised as an important driver of progressive EU environmental protections.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why meta-regulation matters for public health: the case of the EU better regulation agenda

Lauber,

Brooks

2023

Global Health

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Meta-regulation – the rules that govern how individual policies are developed and reviewed – has not received much attention in the study of health policy. We argue that these rules, far from value-free and objective, have significant potential to shape policy outputs and, as such, health outcomes. Channelling and operationalising wider paradigms like neoliberalism, they determine, for instance, what is considered ‘good’ policy, how decisions are made, based on which evidence, and whose voices matter. Exploring an archetypal example of meta-regulation, the European Union’s Better Regulation agenda, we illustrate why meta-regulatory tools such as impact assessment, stakeholder consultation, and evaluation – and the norms that underlie their application – matter for health. In so doing, we concentrate especially on the ways in which Better Regulation may affect interest groups’ ability to exert influence and, conversely, how actors have sought to shape Better Regulation. We argue that attention to meta-regulation contributes to counter-balancing the focus on agency within debates at the intersection of globalisation and health, and notably those on regulatory practices and coordination. Whilst research has noted, for instance, the origins of frameworks like Better Regulation and the increasing inclusion of 'good regulatory practice' provisions within trade and investment agreements, less attention is directed to the role that these frameworks play once institutionalised. Yet, as we illustrate, there is considerable scope for meta-regulation to enhance our understanding of the forces shaping health policy via, for instance, conceptualisations of the (social, economic, political, commercial) determinants of health. As such, we call for increased attention to the role of meta-regulation in research and practice aimed at improving human and planetary health.

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Regulating for Innovation? Insights from the Finnish Presidency of the Council of the European Union

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Occupy the semantic space! Opening up the language of better regulation

Occupy the semantic space! Opening up the language of better regulation

Foundations of Regulatory Choice: Precaution, Innovation … and Nonviolence?

Why meta-regulation matters for public health: the case of the EU better regulation agenda

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