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Commanding to “Nudge” via the Proportionality Principle?

A Case Study on Diets in EU Food Law

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Regulating and Managing Food Safety in the EU

Part of the book series: Economic Analysis of Law in European Legal Scholarship ((EALELS,volume 6))

Abstract

This chapter assesses whether nudging techniques can be argued to be a less restrictive but equally effective way to regulate diets in EU law, when contrasted to classical information-related or content-related regulation. It has been argued that nudging techniques, due to their freedom-preserving nature, might influence the proportionality test in such a way that authorities need to give preference to nudging techniques over content-related or information regulation. We will illustrate on the example of EU food law how behavioural sciences have first altered the EU food law’s goal from the mere provision of safety to also steering behaviour towards healthier diets. In line with this development, the regulatory toolbox advanced beyond the traditional dichotomy of content-related vs. information-related regulation, eventually adding nudging as a third way to regulate. Drawing on previous works of legal scholars we will then present the hypothesis that nudging techniques, according to their choice preserving nature on the one hand and steering character on the other, may be less restrictive but equally effective when contrasted with information-related or content-related regulation. With reference to recent CJEU case law that such a claim would better be backed up by scientific evidence, we will evaluate several nudging studies in the area of food that test the effectiveness of this approach. We will illustrate that, while nudging indeed has a choice-preserving nature and therefore might be less restrictive, it may also be classified under certain circumstances equally effective to information-related regulation. The EU judiciary has introduced an interpretation of the proportionality principle which requires a general preference for information-related rules. The evidence presented, however, may call for a different interpretation of the proportionality principle in some cases to the end that it may require policy makers in the EU to primarily use nudges instead of information-related regulation.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Reisch and Gwozdz (2013).

  2. 2.

    Reisch and Sunstein (2014).

  3. 3.

    Reisch and Gwozdz (2013).

  4. 4.

    CJEU, case C-262/02, Commission v. French Republic, ECLI:EU:C:2004:431, para 34.

  5. 5.

    Very clearly supporting such a view is Schweizer (2016). A different approach is presented by van Aaken (2015). Purnhagen and Reisch (2016), p. 629, leave this question to a case-by-case assessment but provide criteria for this.

  6. 6.

    Krapohl (2007).

  7. 7.

    For the priority of information regulation see Purnhagen (2014a), p. 315 ff.; for an overview of approval procedures in EU food law see Szajkowska (2012), p. 72.

  8. 8.

    See Purnhagen (2015b), p. 903.

  9. 9.

    For a general account from the perspective of EU food law see also Recital 41 of Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011. For a more thorough assessment see Purnhagen and van Herpen (2017).

  10. 10.

    Recital 1 of Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006.

  11. 11.

    For further substantiation of this claim see Purnhagen et al. (2016).

  12. 12.

    Liu et al. (2014).

  13. 13.

    Kahneman (2011).

  14. 14.

    van Kleef et al. (2014).

  15. 15.

    Provencher et al. (2009).

  16. 16.

    See the claims for more inclusion of behavioural science methods into EU law and policy making COM(2015)final, Poncibò and Incardona (2007), p. 21 et seqq.; Sibony (2015), p. 71 ff.; Duivenvoorde (2015); Purnhagen (2015a) p. 51 ff.; van Bavel et al. (2013).

  17. 17.

    Reisch and Gwozdz (2013).

  18. 18.

    Thaler and Sunstein (2003).

  19. 19.

    Dayan and Bar-Hillel (2011).

  20. 20.

    van Kleef et al. (2012).

  21. 21.

    Wansink and Hanks (2013), p. e77055.

  22. 22.

    Bhargava and Loewenstein (2015).

  23. 23.

    See http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/upshot/the-power-of-nudges-for-good-and-bad.html?_r=0.

  24. 24.

    Wilkinson (2013).

  25. 25.

    Gold and Lichtenberg (2012).

  26. 26.

    Johnson et al. (2012).

  27. 27.

    Kahneman (2011).

  28. 28.

    Lynch and Zauberman (2006).

  29. 29.

    van Kleef et al. (2012), p. 1072.

  30. 30.

    Miller et al. (2016).

  31. 31.

    Brown and Aradhna (2004).

  32. 32.

    Johnson and Goldstein (2003).

  33. 33.

    Kahneman et al. (1991).

  34. 34.

    Downs et al. (2009).

  35. 35.

    Just and Wansink (2010) and Li and Chapman (2014).

  36. 36.

    Liu et al. (2014).

  37. 37.

    ECJ, cases 8/55, Fédération Charbonnière, ECLI:EU:C:1956:11.

  38. 38.

    Fisher (2007), p. 211.

  39. 39.

    Purnhagen (2013), p. 715.

  40. 40.

    See on the Cassis de Dijon principle Purnhagen (2014a), p. 315 ff.

  41. 41.

    Usher (2001).

  42. 42.

    Usher (2001).

  43. 43.

    Purnhagen (2014a), p. 324 f. with further reference.

  44. 44.

    See to this end Casey et al. (2010), p. 1077 ff., esp. p. 1081 f.

  45. 45.

    Franck and Purnhagen (2013).

  46. 46.

    We are grateful to Harry Bremmers to point this out to us.

  47. 47.

    CJEU, case C-195/14, ECLI:EU:C:2015:361. “In Teekanne, the Court of Justice held that the labelling of foodstuffs may not give the impression that an ingredient is present in a product where it is in fact not present, and this is apparent solely from the list of ingredients on the packaging. The judgment marks a significant realignment of previous cases that had considered the behaviour of consumers regarding the list of ingredients. In prior case law the Court had found consumers to be adequately protected if they had the possibility to gather the respective information from the list of ingredients. In Teekanne, the Court stipulated that such information of the ingredients list is not able to “correct” a “consumer’s erroneous or misleading impression” created by the “overall labelling” taken as a whole. The ruling is potentially the first case in a series of judgments that understands the “average consumer” in a less normative way, and opens up to arguments about the real-world vulnerability levels of consumers.” (Excerpt from Schebesta and Purnhagen 2016, p. 590).

  48. 48.

    Schebesta and Purnhagen (2016), pp. 590 and 593.

  49. 49.

    See Harbo (2010).

  50. 50.

    Tridimas(1999), p. 68.

  51. 51.

    Tridimas (1999), p. 68.

  52. 52.

    Purnhagen (2014b), chapter 7, para 23.

  53. 53.

    Harbo (2010).

  54. 54.

    See e.g. CJEU, case 66/82, Fromancais v Forma, ECLI:EU:C:1983:42, para 8.

  55. 55.

    We acknowledge that, to our knowledge, the Court has so far never applied all four features in one case.

  56. 56.

    CJEU, case C-203/96, Dusseldorp, ECLI:EU:C:1998:316, para 44.

  57. 57.

    CJEU, case 152/78, Commission/France, ECLI:EU:C:1980:187, para 15 ff.

  58. 58.

    CJEU, case 298/87, Smanor, ECLI:EU:C:1988:415, para 15.

  59. 59.

    CJEU, case 178/84, Commission/Germany, ECLI:EU:C:1987:126, para 28.

  60. 60.

    Schweizer (2016), pp. 93–111.

  61. 61.

    The following section is a translated and expanded version of a paragraph piece published earlier in German in Purnhagen and Reisch (2016), p. 650.

  62. 62.

    Schweizer (2016).

  63. 63.

    De Ridder (2014).

  64. 64.

    Alberto and Salazar (2012).

  65. 65.

    Maziak and Ward (2009).

  66. 66.

    Jeffery and Utter (2003).

  67. 67.

    Thow et al. (2014).

  68. 68.

    Stuckler and Nestle (2012).

  69. 69.

    Hallsworth and Sanders (2016), p. 113.

  70. 70.

    Bucher et al. (2016).

  71. 71.

    Wilson et al. (2015).

  72. 72.

    Wilson et al. (2016).

  73. 73.

    Nørnberg et al. (2015).

  74. 74.

    Jung and Wooseong (2011).

  75. 75.

    van Kleef et al. (2015).

  76. 76.

    Purnhagen and Reisch (2016), pp. 647–648.

  77. 77.

    Id.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wageningen University, Law and Governance, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Kai Purnhagen

  2. Erasmus University Rotterdam Law School, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Kai Purnhagen

  3. Wageningen University, Marketing and Consumer Behaviour Group, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Ellen van Kleef

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Correspondence to Kai Purnhagen .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Law and Governance Group, Wageningen University and Research (WUR), Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Harry Bremmers

  2. Law School, Erasmus University of Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Kai Purnhagen

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Purnhagen, K., van Kleef, E. (2018). Commanding to “Nudge” via the Proportionality Principle?. In: Bremmers, H., Purnhagen, K. (eds) Regulating and Managing Food Safety in the EU. Economic Analysis of Law in European Legal Scholarship, vol 6. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77045-1_8

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