Preference attainment in making of chemical policies in europe : case study- classification, labeling and packaging of chemicals

The main theme of my research is to look into the different state and non state actors present in the EU in the making of chemical policies in Europe. The goal of this research was to study the preferences of each group of actor in the EU -supranational actors ( the Commission, the Parliament), the EU member states and the interest groups. The Commission's online consultation documents were used as data to study their preferences. Finally the preferences of the actors were analyzed and compared to see which actor has been the most dominant player in my case study. This was done by studying the final legislation of the case I have chosen. Preference Attainment Methid was used to measure the preferences of the actors and compare them with each other. My special concern is the case of CLP ( Classification, Labeling and Packaging of chemicals). This is a policy adopted in Europe from the GHS policy which is a globally recognized chemical policy for rules and regulations on chemical hazards. CLP is particularly brought in Europe for the purpose of having one common chemical language in all the member states of Europe with new rules on classfying dangerous products, on providing useful information of the chemical products on the labels for potentially hazardous substances. This policy came into force in Europe in 2009. The preparation for implementation of CLP in Europe had started way back in 1992 at the Rio De Janerio summit. During the preparation stages, the European Commission published online consultation documents where all the relevant stakeholders/participatory actors were invited to put their comments. Responses came maximum from interest groups. Some EU member states also sent their comments and the European Parliament had put forward some comments too. In the online questionnaires there were some nine important questions and for the sake of this research, those nine questions were identified as nine important issues involved in CLP legislation. Maximum comments were made on the text of CLP issue. Congruence Analysis research has been used to carry out this research using three different theories to give a theoretical treatment to the research. Supranational actor preferences was studies using Supranationalism. The member states preferences were studied using Intergovernmentalism and the interest group preferences were studied using several interest group theories. The prupose was to see which of these theories provides a better explaination in understanding the making of CLP legislation. After analyzing the final outcomes, it was seen that none of the actors individually could play a dominant role in this policy making. All the actors had some of their preferences reflected in the final legislation and in some of their preferences they had to comprmoise,. So the outcome was a balanced outcome. Also after carrying out a congruence approach between the theories, it was seen that none of the theories used was robust enough to explain this chemical policy making . All the theories had their own role to play. These findings reinforce the statements put forward by proponents of EU Multilevel Governance like Hooghe, Marks and Mc Adams that EU governance is principally a multilevel governance in which all the actors together play their roles for the sucessful functioning of the EU.