Rising from the Ashes: A Governance Perspective on Emerging Systemic Risks
Unpredictable events -like an infrastructure failure such as a blackout (e.g. the 1999 southern Brazil blackout or the northeast blackout of 2003 that occurred in the US and Canada), a large-scale financial crisis with deep consequences on the real economy (e.g. the Icelandic and the Greek crises), a non-conventional terrorist attack (committed with chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear weapons), the risk related to the exploitation of new technologies (typically nanotechnologies), or a geophysical event (as the 2010 volcanic ash crisis or the 2011 Japan earthquake) - may suddenly cause large-scale losses. The knock-on effect of these events grows beyond the direct social and economic impact on a specific geographic area, affecting simultaneously different regions and imposing immediate regulatory answers.
The European Regulatory Response to the Volcanic Ash Crisis between Fragmentation and Integration
More than twenty years after the EU eliminated its internal land borders, the Union still lacks an integrated airspace. This seems to be the most immediate regulatory lesson of the recent volcanic ash crisis. Yet more research is needed before establishing its net effects. In this brief report, I will provide a first-hand analysis of the regulatory answer developed across Europe in the aftermath of the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull. While reconstructing the unfolding of the events and the procedures followed by the regulators, I will attempt to address some of the questions that I have repeatedly asked myself when stranded in Washington DC between 16 and 25 April 2010. Who did the assessment of the hazard posed by volcanic ash to jetliners? Who was competent to take risk management decisions, such as the controversial flight bans? Is it true that the safe level of volcanic ash was zero? How to explain the shift to a new safety threshold (of 2,000 mg/m3) only five days after the event? Did regulators overact? To what extent did they manage the perceived risk rather than the actual one? At a time when the impact of the volcanic ash cloud crisis is being closely scrutinised by both public authorities and the affected industries, it seems particularly timely to establish what happened during the worst aviation crisis in European history. This report was written one week after the event and relied on a limited number of sources available by 30 April 2010.
Smart Regulation: The European Commission’s Updated Strategy
On 8 October 2010, the European Commission issued a communication paper on Smart Regulation in the European Union. The paper reports on progress made, future priorities and strategy in the field of regulatory reform, for the information of interested outsiders. It is the latest in a series of such communications, issued on a regular basis since the first major, systematic action plan in 2002. However, this most recent communication comes at a time when the context has changed noticeably. First, the financial crisis sparked by the credit crunch has altered attitudes to regulation. More attention is now being paid to the effectiveness of regulation and its overall quality than before. The Communication acknowledges this and underlines that regulation is essential to ensure that markets deliver sustainable prosperity for all. Second, a number of the Commission’s tools have been in place for some time, allowing it to draw useful lessons from its own experiences as well as from those of other countries. Its impact assessment system recently underwent a major examination by the European Court of Auditors.