Reconciling Inconsistencies in Regulation throughout the European Union for a Risk-based Approach toward Industry Governance: A Closer Look at Germany

Protecting citizens from harm to life and property is the oldest and primary function of the state. Apart from war and terrorism, there are many sources of harmful effects in the everyday life of citizens, arising, for instance, from modern technologies and globalization. Traditionally, governments have sought to prevent serious risks altogether regardless of their probability of occurrence. A case in point is the deterministic safety philosophy for nuclear reactors that requires prevention of a meltdown on the basis of predefined accidents rather than probability assessments. However, high prevention costs and unintended negative effects of preventive measures due to complex causal relationships have led to the gradual replacement of a hazard-based approach with a risk-based approach, which takes the probability of harmful events into account. Thus, the hazard-based protecting state seems to be shifting toward a risk-based protecting state. This is apparent in the field of product safety.