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Risk Governance and Risk Assessment – Key tools for an effective European Parliament

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Malcolm Harbour
Malcolm Harbour*
Affiliation:
STOAandCommittee on the Internal MarketandConsumer Protection (IMCO)
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Extract

For more than 10 years, I have had the privilege of being Vice President of STOA, the European Parliament's Science and Technology Options Assessment arm. During that time, I have been part of the team that has refocused STOA towards the crucial role of monitoring trends in science and technology, commissioning research to examine the implications for policy makers, and organising events to disseminate results.

During the same period, my work as a legislator has made me more and more aware of the need to examine science and technological trends, in order to ensure that the legislation that we amend and approve is truly “fit for purpose”. We are not afraid to recommend changes where we think that technological developments will make suggested provisions redundant or ineffective. To give a recent example, in our review of the Directive on Consumer Rights, we insisted on including new provisions to safeguard consumers buying faulty digital products or services. These were not included in the original text, but were subsequently agreed by the Member States and the European Commission.

Type
Symposium on the European Parliament’s Role in Risk Governance
Information
European Journal of Risk Regulation , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , June 2012 , pp. 174 - 175
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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References

1 Directive 2011/83/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2011 on consumer rights, available on the Internet at <http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2011:304:0064:0088:EN:PDF> (last accessed on 7 April 2012).

2 European Commission, “Impact Assessment Guidelines”, 15 January 2009 SEC (2009) 92, available on the Internet at <http://ec.europa.eu/governance/impact/commission_guidelines/docs/iag_2009_en.pdf> (last accessed on 7 April 2012).

3 European Court of Auditors, “Impact assessments In the EU Institutions: Do they support decision-making?”, Special Report N° 3, 2010, available on the Internet at <http://ec.europa.eu/governance/impact/docs/coa_report_3_2010_en.pdf> (last accessed on 7 April 2012).

4 European Parliament, Council, Commission: Inter-institutional Agreement on better law-making (2003/C 321/01), available on the Internet at <http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:2003:321:0001:0005:EN:PDF> (last accessed on 7 April 2012).

5 The decision was made with the Parliamentary Resolution of 8 June 2011 on guaranteeing independent impact assessments (2010/2016(INI)).