Principles and Structures of European Risk Governance, or: How (not) to Play a Trust Game

Abstract

Ever more risky service activities are carried out across borders, creating spillovers and externalities. At the same time, if freedom to provide services is legally enabled, states can cooperate in multiple ways to mitigate the potential risks accruing from crossborder activities. Global Administrative Law Scholarship distinguishes five types of administrative regulation: “administration by formal international organizations; administrations based on collective action by transnational networks of governmental officials; distributed administration conducted by national regulators under treaty regimes, mutual recognition arrangements or cooperative standards; administration by hybrid intergovernmental–private arrangements; and administration by private institutions with regulatory functions. In practice many of these layers overlap or combine […]”. In the area of risky cross–border service provision, the EU has moved from a more decentralised version of networks and mutual recognition characterised by coordination and minimum harmonization of rules and standards to a more centralized commandand–control system with European authorities and supervision.