ABSTRACT
This chapter asks a key question emerging from the previous analysis. How can and should contemporary governments respond more effectively to the growth of food risks, while at the same time encouraging the further economic development and integration of the European internal market? Taking the case of European food regulation and accountability, the interplay of infl uences that are beginning to shape this new regulatory terrain are explored using primary empirical data and analysis. More specifi cally we examine the three critical dimensions of change in the 2000s. These are organised in terms of: (i) the maturing of Europeanisation and its impact and relationships with the UK; (ii) the consumerisation and new institutionalisation of food policy, and the wider participation of interest groups; and (iii) the development of a more complex private interest model of food regulation. This chapter thus outlines a revised conceptual model of contested regulation which incorporates the State, corporate and non-corporate interests, consumer organisations, and a variety of other social interests.
