Brussels,
Backrooms and Banners
An inquiry on the democratic legitimacy of
European Union lobbying and lobbying strategies
Benjamin Meijer
(6194478)
Adviser and supervisor: Dr. M.C. Hanegraaff
Second supervisor: Dr. M. Rooduijn
January 2015
Master Thesis Political Science:
Political Theory and Political Behaviour
Advocacy in EU and world politics: who is represented
(and who is not)?
Michael: ‘What comes before anything? What have we always said is the most important thing?’
George Michael: ‘Breakfast.’ Michael: ‘Family.’
George Michael: ‘Family, right. I thought you meant of the things you eat.’
(Hurwitz, 2003) Thank you.
Table of contents
1. Introduction 4
2. Research question, method and organization 6
3. Theoretical frames 7
3.1 Theoretical frame: The European Union as a democracy:,
interest group theory, democratic deficit and public attitudes towards
the political institutions of the EU 7
3.1.1 Interest group theory: interest groups and lobbying 8
3.1.2 Interest groups and role in democracy: pluralism, elitism and corporatism 9
3.1.3 Interest group theory in a distinctive pluralist European context:
the democratic deficit 12
3.1.4 Public attitudes towards the European Union, Euroscepticism and 14
explanations
3.2 Theoretical frame: The Political System of the European Union and 18
European Union Lobbying
3.2.1 The European Union legislative process 18
3.2.2 Theoretical insights and European institutions insights on 21
multi-‐level lobbying
3.2.2.1 Lobbying the Commission 21
3.2.2.2 Lobbying Parliament 22
3.2.2.3 Lobbying the Council 23
3.2.3 Lobbying: transparency register and the figures 25
3.3 Theoretical frame: Lobbying agents and strategies, and probable 25
public perceptions
3.3.1 Lobbying agents: Business lobbying and probable public perception 26
3.3.2 Lobbying agents: NGO lobbying and probable public perception 28
3.3.3 Lobbying strategies 30
3.3.3.1 Insider lobbying or ‘access’ 31
3.3.3.2 Outsider lobbying or ‘voice’ 32
3.3.3.3. The perceived democratic legitimacy of these strategies by citizens 33
4. Hypotheses, operationalization and research method 34
4.1 General hypotheses 35 4.2 Specific hypotheses 36 4.3 Operationalization 37 4.4. Method 37 5. Data 38 6. Case analysis 40 6.1 General findings 41 6.2 General hypotheses 42 6.3 Specific hypotheses 43
7. Conclusion and implications 47
1. Introduction
The issue at stake: European democracy, lobbying strategies and citizens’ appreciation
The European Union (EU) is a famously unique political project, seen from both a historical as well as a contemporary point of view. Since the signing of the Treaty of Lisbon in 2007 and the operational entry in 2009, some scholars and many politicians saw a fulfilment of wish spoken out decades ago. A European union of nations, based on a system that seemed to be the final political destination of mankind: democracy. As article 8 a of the Treaty of Lisbon states: ‘The function of the Union shall be founded on representative democracy’ (2007). In this amending treaty, it is the first time that the functioning of the European Union itself is described as a representative democracy in itself, instead of the EU being a union of nations that ‘are founded on the principles of democracy’ (Treaty on the European Union, 1992) or a political entity that contributes to the development of democracy and rule of law (Treaty of Nice, 2001). This begs the question what kind of representative democracy the EU is supposed to be and what that means to the citizen of the EU. The citizen unarguably being one of the two most
important actors in a representative democracy, the other being the body of elected officials (Manin, 1997). Much has been written on the ‘democratic deficit’ of the EU, which is a concept that is not clearly defined, but encompasses multiple issues that could be considered as problematic to representative democracy, such as the limited power of the directly elected European Parliament, low voter turnout and the absence of true party competition in a Schumpeterian sense (Follesdal & Hicks, 2006). Although, since the ratification of the Lisbon treaty, this deficit has arguably become more narrow (Lord, 2008). The European Parliament, as a directly elected body, has more legislative power than ever, although a lack of a right of initiative can still be seen as a sign of a democratic deficit.
Related to that question, is what the role of lobbying or advocacy is in the European representative democracy. In this thesis the following definition of lobbying will be used: a person or organization that tries to influence legislation (Hague & Harrop, 2007) (for the sake of clarity, only ‘lobbying’ will be used, not advocacy). From this definition, lobbying is a much wider concept than the public might see it. It can, and will be in this thesis, divided into different lobbying strategies. Lobbying is very important to
European politics because it is so widespread. As the absolute and relative size as well as the power of the EU has grown in the last decades, so has lobbying. Because the EU is such an intricately arranged multi-‐level political entity, it could be argued that this offers both opportunities and problems to lobbying it (Coen & Richardson, 2009: 3-‐4). In different public debates, both the European Union and lobbying (even aside from the European Union) seem to be both controversial. This thesis will not elaborate on measurements of lobbying success, but the aforementioned complexity and ability of lobbyists to make use of this complexity raises more questions about the representative character of the European democracy than the debate on the democratic deficit. A few of those questions are: how does lobbying fit into a representative democracy?; How do different lobbying strategies differ from their beneficence to representative democracy? How does lobbying in the unique, multilevel political structure of the EU in relation to representative democracy? Answering these questions from a theoretical frame should give plenty background to construct a research on the most important question for this thesis: How do citizens view lobbying and different lobbying strategies? Do they seem to find them democratically legitimate? Does the nature of the lobbying actor matter, does it matter whether the lobbyists are businesses or NGOs?
It is also interesting to find out whether the attitude towards European seems to matter for citizen’s appreciation. Because of its relative further (psychological and absolute) distance and size, the European political arena might be seen as inherently
undemocratic, making lobbying or lobbying strategies less important factors. There has been much debate on this issue, in academic and other (public) political spheres, but what this thesis aims to add to the discussion on democracy and lobbying in general is the appreciation of citizens towards lobbying as a political phenomenon and different kinds of lobbying strategies in the light of democracy and the consent or even approval of the ordinary citizen or the lack thereof. To keep this research feasible, the locus of the research shall be in the Netherlands. Although that might hurt external validity, some findings might be interesting to research further upon in other European Union member states.
2. Research question, method and organization
The research question of this thesis is: To what extent do citizens appreciate lobbying and differing lobbying strategies in the European Union from a viewpoint of democratic legitimacy? In order to answer this question, the rest of this thesis has a five-‐tier setup (chapter 3 to 7): A theoretical exploration, consisting of several interconnected
theoretical frames; a description of the method of organization and hypotheses; a presentation of data; a case-‐analysis, based on an inquiry that derives its goals and motives from the theoretical frame; and a conclusion of this research, completed with a description of the implications of this conclusion.
The first theoretical frame consists of the democratic character of the European Union and the so-‐called democratic deficit, which is connected to interest group theories, and the different views on democracy in a European context. Over the last 60 years, several theories on how lobbying (as a prime activity of interest groups) fits within democracy have been developed by primarily American political scientists. There are several different approaches to governance, power sharing and influence in a representative democracy beyond its representative institutions. Also closely related to the democratic deficit is the concept of ‘Euroscepticism’, a phenomenon that is understandably
monitored by the European political institutions. When citizens are more sceptic towards European politics in general or towards certain political institutions in particular, the democratic deficit without doubt becomes bigger. Furthermore, it is particularly interesting to find out whether lobbying either widens or closes the gap of the perceived democratic deficit and thus the democratic legitimacy of the practice from the citizen’s point of view. These theories will be connected to the European policy process and the European Union as a democracy, its multi-‐level structure and the opportunities and difficulties it offers to lobbying, to ascertain the relation between government, interest groups and citizens. The perceived democratic legitimacy, or lack thereof, of interest groups by citizens shall be explicitly explored.
The second theoretical frame is that of the European policy process, its institutions and the insights on how European lobbying does and does not work, which is followed by the third theoretical frame with academic views on different lobbying actors and
different lobbying strategies. Combining these three elements should give ample direction to construct certain hypotheses on how citizens might view lobbying; EU lobbying in general; differing lobbying actors and different lobbying strategies as
democratically legitimate. In the next section of this thesis, an inquiry shall be developed with questions related to the hypotheses.
The inquiry shall be conducted a sample of Dutch citizens (who are a citizen of the European Union and eligible to vote in European elections). This has everything to do with feasibility. Although it might be argued that an exclusive research on Dutch citizens views is certainly not random or externally valid because of the European scope of the theory, it should be able to replicate the survey under different European peoples. The survey will contain questions that can be quantitatively analysed, so the hypotheses connected to the questions can either be accepted or rejected. A case analysis and a conclusion with implications self-‐evidently follow from this research.
3. Theoretical frames
3.1 Theoretical frame: The European Union as a democracy:, interest group theory, democratic deficit and public attitudes towards the political institutions of the EU
The idea of the European Union as a democracy is widely contested. Although the EU styles itself a representative democracy, many scholars disagree with one another on what kind of democracy the EU really is, or whether it is a democracy at all. Some even style the EU as a ‘demoicracy’, e.g. a political system wherein a plurality of peoples (‘demoi’ in Greek as opposed to the singular ‘demos’) rules themselves (Cheneval & Schimmelfennig, 2013). The debate on the democratic character of the EU is closely related to European interest group theory. A hotly contested issue in this theory is the democratic deficit. An important question in the debate on this deficit is whether
interest groups have a substantial role in European democracy and more importantly, if by lobbying they widen or close the ‘gap’ between the European political institutions and citizens. The answers scholars give is closely related to their view on European democracy, which makes it a highly normative debate. Interestingly enough, when
considering the link between citizens, interest groups and institutions, this debate is not only highly normative but also very theoretical, lacking a consistent empirical base.
The idea has already been forwarded that within an institute that characterizes itself as a representative democracy the role of the represented, is crucial. So in any definition given, within democracy the relation between the (individual) citizen and government, whether is be direct or indirect is cannot be ignored. As Arblaster states: ‘democracy is a method of organizing public life that allows the concerns and interests of citizens to be articulated within government’ (1987). In a representative democracy, ‘elected
politicians represent their electors, districts and parties’ (Hague & Harrop, 2007:48). That must also mean that some form of consent or support is needed from the citizens in order to guarantee the continuity of the democratic political system. Freedom of opinion is an important safeguard and prerequisite for political participation of citizens outside of the institutional arena (and also fits within the idea of a liberal democracy, which could be regarded as supplementary to representative democracy (Ibidem.:49)), and repeated elections give citizens the ultimate power over representatives (Manin, 1997). It is noteworthy that in these concepts and definitions of democracy there is no
Rousseauian idea of the citizens as an almighty entity that has a direct final say over every political aspect. There is, in other words, room for more deliberation between citizens and government than formal institutional procedures as voting. More
importantly, it means that lobbying can have a place in a democracy. But the question is how lobbying fits within the power sharing arrangement that a representative
democracy is, especially when put in relation with citizens and government.
3.1.1 Interest group theory: interest groups and lobbying
In order to understand their role in a political environment, the prime lobbying actors, interest groups, have to be examined. According to David Truman, any society is composed of groups, and is a ‘mosiac of overlapping groups’ (Truman:1951:43). ‘Interest group refers to any group that on the basis of one or more shared attitudes, makes certain claims upon other groups in the society for the establishment,
maintenance or enhancement of forms of behaviour that are implied by the shared attitudes’ (Ibidem.:33), with which shared attitudes, interests are meant. For many,
‘lobbyists’ seem to have to be eradicated from a public perception (although that is not empirically substantiated). Most importantly, Truman sees no political distinction from individuals and groups. It is merely a classification of certain behaviour. In that case, lobbying by interest groups is not bad, but simply adds to the complex relation between government and governed. Mansur Olson adds to that by stating that organizations exist to further the interest of their members. In that sense lobbyists have two
complementary interests (1971:6): their main one, the reason why they exist; and the policy interest, its ability to influence government policy in order to further the main interest. In his traditional theory of groups a ‘casual’ view is that organizations and groups are ubiquitous because of ‘a fundamental human propensity to form and join associations.’ The formal view is that groups affiliate because of the rise of the modern industrial society, making affiliation with people other than those known in the
(producing) family imperative (Ibidem.:17). In any way, interest groups are the primary actor in lobbying. When looking at Baumgartner’s definition of it, lobbying has to involve government decisions and intent to change policy. In this sense there is not just an overlapping of groups where some actions of groups towards another group (or individual) can be seen as lobbying.
Three schools of thought on power sharing that are not the same but are closely
intertwined are pluralism, elitism and neopluralism. Andrew McFarland describes how neopluralism eventually came to be as a vision from a sort of dialectic clash between ‘old school’ pluralists and elitists in an article aptly titled ‘Neopluralism’ (2007). It’s worth considering what these theories have to say about the role of government, lobbyists and and the citizen and the relations they share because it might give perspectives on how citizens view these relations. Because these theories are primarily America-‐centric, corporatism as a more European interest theory will also be examined.
3.1.2 Interest groups and role in democracy: pluralism, elitism and corporatism
Interest group theory can be divided into two primary schools of thought: pluralism and elitism. Corporatism is a distinctive European interest group theory, but since this theory is limited to the behaviour of trade unions and employers unions, it will not be taken into account any further than this section. Pluralism is the oldest interest group
theory, devised by Robert Dahl in the 1960s. It consists of four elements. The first element is power as a force of causation. Which means that when an actor causes other behaviour of another actor in the way the first intended, there is spoken of power (McFarland, 2007:47). The second element is the idea of a political process model. In this political process model, agents are groups and individuals who represent group interests, wherein the process these agents affect each other’s behaviour. The agents themselves define the interest pursued, and these interests also change within the process (Ibidem.:48). It relies heavily on empirical research over periods in time that should be long enough to see fluctuations in power, but it is not defined how long such a period should be in absolute terms. The third element is the application of power as causation and the political process model to ‘specific domains of politics and policy making’ (Ibid.:49). In this sense, the political system is not a single unified entity, but an arena that contains several policy domains. Power is not equally divided amongst these domains. The fourth element is that the interest as defined by the researched should be accepted (Ibid.50). Dahl applied these elements to a research that he conducted on three policy areas in an American city. His concluded that in every policy area, there were different people who had power as he defined. In this way power was not concentrated in a certain elite, but ‘fragmented’, therefore creating a certain spreading of power, which increases (democratic) legitimacy.
One of two defining characteristics of pluralism, when applied outside of the polity of the American city, is that a (large) number of interest groups are in competition with one another for influence towards government. The government acts as ‘an umpire’, and it lets the competition between the interest groups dictate its policy, (carefully) weighing the arguments, benefits and disadvantages of policy proposals and deciding to
implement policy in accordance with what it deems the best proposal, or a compromise between several decent proposals. The second characteristic of pluralism is that in its view, interests of several minorities are represented within government, beyond (party) representation in a parliament. The process of influence is bottom-‐up, and the
minorities consist largely of ordinary citizens, from vocationally organized groups to the disabled, from employers unions to environmental groups (Hague & Harrop, 2007:213). So in this view, interest groups supplement and thereby strengthen representative democracy. In the view of elitism, however, there is not much competition between
interests groups at all. The perpetuating policy cycle, in their eyes, creates certain ‘oligarchical coalitions’ (McFarland, 2007:51). These oligarchical coalitions consist of ‘iron triangles’ or ‘issue networks’ between interest groups, bureaucrats and legislators. Because of its non-‐transparency, these issue networks leads to secretive policy-‐making (Hague & Harrop, 2007:216). To circumvent certain ‘free rider effects’, the benefits of policy are shared solely amongst the interest groups themselves, and the government has no eye for a public good in this situation, simply because citizens are seen in this model as either free riders or unimportant. In this theory, the citizen has no connection to the interest groups, and they the interest groups are not in any way accountable to the public.
A more contemporary critique on elitism, or evolution of pluralism comes from the school of ‘neopluralism’ ,that takes some of the points the elitists put forward into consideration, but applied them to pluralism, hence the name . The main idea is that while some elites do form within a policy area, and their accountability is limited, these elites are not closed but fluid; their mix-‐up of organizations changes constantly and it is especially more open to certain non-‐governmental organizations than elitists say, counter-‐balancing the heavy business-‐industrialist bias the elitist have (McFarland, 2007:55). That creates more issue competition within these elites, thereby creating more plurality, and from that, legitimacy, although neopluralists do emphasize that a plurality within an elite, however fluid it may be, does not mean that these elites are democratically representative, which is an important idea to consider. Wealthy patrons make the organization of these counterbalancing non-‐governmental organizations possible. Remarkably, government is seen as one such patron. By funding these organizations and giving them access to itself, government organizes its own ‘countervailing power’ (Ibid.:57). McFarland sees neopluralism as the most widely accepted power sharing theory in contemporary political science. To conclude,
neopluralism contains the Dahlian assumptions of pluralism, but combines them with the idea of elites that while they are fluid, are not truly necessarily representative.
A more Eurocentric theory power sharing theory is corporatism. A confined definition of corporatism is ‘a relationship between the state and interest groups in which major decisions on domestic matters emerge from discussion between the government and
peak associations representing the major social partners: capital and labour’ (Hague & Harrop, 2007:211). Stefan Berger and Hugh Compston give that same process another name: ‘policy concertation’, for its less ambiguous meaning (2002). For the sake of clarity, ‘corporatism’ shall be used in this thesis. What truly sets corporatism apart from pluralism or elitism is the role of the government. Within pluralism and elitism,
government is entrenched in deliberation with interest groups, in a more or less closed system depending on the view. But government still has the final say in making policy. Interest groups are consulted, not given formal power in the process. Within
corporatism, social partners must have a say in the policy process. The consultation is not informal, but legally binding, which even sets it apart from lobbying. From Berger and Compton’s perspective, that must mean that they have formal power in the process (Berger & Compston, 2002:1-‐2). The weak part of this theory when applied to a
European level is twofold. Firstly, it is evidently its confinement to employers and trade unions. As can be seen in the both the first and last theoretical frame, European lobbying goes way beyond these types of organizations. Secondly, some areas that are pillars in corporatism, especially social policy, are simply not controlled by the European Union, only in the very weak type of process that is called the Open Method of Coordination. Member states do not only have a final say in it, they simply decide without binding European legislation (Büchs, 2007). Although within the member states, corporatism is still prevalent, especially in Western Europe.
3.1.3 Interest group theory in a distinctive pluralist European context: the democratic deficit
When analysing the European Union, there seems to be some form of agreement that is a pluralistic political entity, although not all scholars agree (e.g. Eriksen & Fossum, 2002). But there is some debate whether that is Dahlian pluralist or elite-‐pluralist/neopluralist (Coen, 1997; Coultrap, 1999; Jensen, 2009; Schmidt, 2006). And as can be seen in the theoretical frame on the European legislative process, there does seem to be some form of relatively open accessibility to the European Commission and Parliament especially, for a plethora of widely differing organizations, each representing a different interest.
One concept that is very tightly connected to the notion a pluralist European Union is the democratic deficit. As the name implies, a democratic deficit should have influence on the popular support for a (representative) democracy. The literature on the concept itself is not conclusive, as Thomas Jensen states, it ‘is remarkable for its heterogeneity (2009:1)’. Innately to that, there are many ways to describe it. An obvious way to describe the deficit is from an institutional view. From this perspective the democratic deficit has two main elements.: ‘(a) the transfer of powers from Member States [sic] to the European Community [i.e. European Union]; and (b) the exercise of those powers at the Community level by institutions other than the European Parliament (…)’ . Adding tot that, is the idea that the Parliamentary elections are not European-‐wide elections, but national elections for a European instiution, making it a sort of national popularity contest instead of a contest for European policy (Chryssochoou, 2010:378; Weiler, 2005).
When there is too wide of a gap between the people (‘demos’) and the power (‘kratos’), a negative impact on the view of that power (which obviously primarily lies within the political institutions or ‘political arena’) is to be expected, assuming that citizens in a democracy overwhelmingly support that democracy as an idea and in practice (e.g. by voting) (Manin, 1997:221). According to Robert Dahl, this gap will cannot be closed in an international political institution such as the EU because, amongst other reasons, it lacks a ‘shared political culture’ and a ‘common identity’ (Dahl, 1998; Jensen, 2009). Decker adds to that the European Union lacks a defined ‘demos’ (2002). But the idea of the European Union as some form of democracy is a fact, if not only by the mere
statement of the EU itself that it is a democracy, even a representative one. For John Coultrap, that statement isn’t true. He is careful to highlight the difference between the pluralistic nature of the Union, and its incompatibility with representative democracy: for him they are not supplementary but opposites. In this view the existence of the European Parliament does not make it a Parliamentary or representative democracy at all (1999:120-‐122), The EU is instead a sort of pluralistic (and yet still very democratic) paradise, where minorities rule instead of a majority, which is a thought that
comfortably fits within the idea of a politically united Europe of many nations that lacks the aforementioned shared political culture and common identity. It should be said
however, that these remarks were made before the ratification of the Lisbon treaty, which made Parliament far more powerful than it was before it.
Whichever view is followed, it is striking that in these definitions and analyses of the democratic deficit the roles and attitudes of the citizen is described, but not examined. In other words: What these theories and insights lack is an empirical understanding of the citizen’s approval of the political system and, related to this thesis in particular,
especially the approval of the role of interest group lobbying in this democracy. And whether the EU is either a handicapped parliamentary democracy or a pluralist
democracy, the consent for the political system is necessary to style it a true democracy in any way (be it representative or pluralist). The lack of empirical research might mean that for these theories and approaches individual citizens are simply not seen as such, but more as a political actor in an Olsonion way, with which is meant that that there is a sort of false distinction between interest groups and individuals, as they are represented by them in some way. Or it means that citizen’s appreciation of lobbying interest groups is seen as one of silent compliance. As long as there is no explicit protest against these efforts, acceptance is assumed.
Going with the definition of the European Union itself, in this research the European Union will be treated as a (albeit it handicapped) representative democracy with substantive and supplementary pluralistic elements. It begs the question whether citizens see interest groups and their lobbying activities as a part of this democracy or not. Before questions can be constructed, the research that has been done on public approval of the European political institutions will be described. That goes beyond the simple observation that as a representative democracy, the European Union has at least an electoral problem: the voter turnout during the last Parliamentary election in 2014 was just 42.54 %, (European Parliament -‐2-‐) So in the next section, political institutions of the European Union in general will be explored.
3.1.4 Public attitudes towards the European Union, Euroscepticism and explanations
When looking at public support for the European Union, it is important to make a distinction between support for European Union as a collection of political institutions,
European integration (which in itself is a diffuse concept) and European expansion. For this research, there is a focus on the public support for the functioning of the European political institutions and the (arguably large) role that lobbying plays in the policy process. It should be noted that ‘public perception’ is a very abstract concept in the European case, since one cannot really speak of a European public sphere. It could be argued that ‘public perceptions’ is a better concept, because the public perception of the European Union varies from member state to member state (Eriksen & Fossum,
2002:405; McLaren, 2010:384). For the sake of clarity however, European public perception shall be treated as a singular concept.
Large contribution to this part are derived from research done by Lauren McLaren, who seems to be the most active researcher and the European Commission, that regularly monitors public perception on European institutions and publishes them in so called
Eurobarometers since the 1970s.
From a historic perspective, the EU has been designed top-‐down, as an elite project. Public opinion of the Union did not become important until the mid 1970s. Since that decade the EU has evidently grown in size and political power. With the growing of the EU, the inclusion of relatively Eurosceptic (a term first attributed to Margaret Thatcher) member states made public opinion more important. Until the mid 1980s, the public perception was perceived as one of ‘permissive consensus’ (McLaren, 2010:391). After 1991 (the year the European Union officially became known as such with the signing of the Maastricht treaty) and 1997 (the Treaty of Amsterdam), public support for the European Union fell sharply. The explicit vision of EU-‐membership as ‘a good thing’ fell from 70% to 50%. The 2005 referenda in the Netherlands and France, wherein the ‘Constitutional Treaty’ (which, with some cosmetic changes, was later to become the ratified Lisbon treaty) were rejected by both nations, where seen as a watershed moment in how seriously the public perception should be taken (Ibidem:395). It is important to understand that support thus fell before the mass expansion of ten primarily Eastern-‐European countries in 2005 came to being, although some of these countries are more Eurosceptic than ‘the old 15’, Euroscepticism cannot be seen from a West-‐East cleavage (Ibid.:396, Eurobarometer, 2012).
The figures are telling. In the last Eurobarometer, the percentage of Europeans who had a positive view on the EU, was a mere 39, although that is much more than the 30 % it received in the autumn of 2012. A rough 22 % of European seem to have an explicitly negative view towards the European Union, making 37 % ‘neutral’, or apathetic. It must be said that while the positive and negative views seem to be highly volatile, often changing as much as 10 percentage points in a year, the number of neutral citizens seems to stay fairly stable, floating at around 40 % in the last five years. In line with the idea of a plural Europe lacking a ‘demos’ or a unified public sphere, support for the EU widely differs among member states. Where only 6 % of Latvians seem to have negative view on the EU, 38 % of Latvians share that negativity. The Irish seem to be the most positive, with 61 %, and the Cypriotes, understandably, the least with 24 %. Roughly half of the European population think that ‘their voice counts’ in Europe, where the other half thinks that it doesn’t. That same figure goes for the attitude towards the future of the EU: roughly half is optimistic, and the other rough half is pessimistic
(Eurobarometer, 2014).
There are five different explanations for the support of the European Union in general: two rational ones, a national one, a psychological one, and, most importantly to this research, an institutional one. It is needed to go over the rational and psychological views as well however, because there might be some correlation between findings derived from these theories and findings that can be explained from institutional
explanations. The rational theories are divided into a utilitarian and a sociotropical one. The utilitarian premise is that citizen’s appreciation of the European Union as a whole can be explained from their individual socio-‐economic position. A higher income and better education (which correlate very strongly) seem to have a positive effect on European political appreciation. That can be explained by the EU as a primarily
economic endeavour, wherein the open market is the most beneficial to individuals with better educations and higher income. The sociotropical explanation is also derived from an economic viewpoint, but from this theory the attitude towards the EU is decided by a national scope, not an individual one. Citizens from countries that receive the most from the EU budget seem to be most content, just as citizens from countries that are net payers, are most negative (McLaren, 2010:397). The third explanation says that the primary variable that decides EU appreciation is the appreciation of national
governments. Especially in referenda, citizens seem to not be aware of European politics as much as national politics. EU appreciation is then directly deduced from appreciation of national government, with a strong positive correlation of the attitudes (Ibidem, 2010:398). The fourth explanation is a psychological one. The most important aspect is that of knowledge. The more ‘cognitively mobilized’ (in other words: has knowledge about) a person is towards the European Union, the more positive he is about it. The same goes for identity. People who identify themselves as national citizens are more negative, while people who identify themselves as multinational or European are more positive (Ibid:399). Last and most important, the ‘perceived poverty’ of EU institutions can explain EU appreciation. Again, this is important because lobbying is, when brought down to the basics, a dialogue (or monologue, depending on the strategy) between lobbyists and institutions. From this viewpoint, EU citizens are perceived to have some knowledge on European institutions. But there is also a correlation between the
functioning of national governments and appreciation of the European institutions. The lesser the perceived functioning in national governments, the more trust there is in European institutions, and the other way around. Obviously, the appreciation varies per country, but the dynamic stays the same (Ibid.402, Rohrschneider, 2002).
All these explanations but one can be hypothesized and questioned. The third explanation, that states that attitudes towards national governments correlates with attitudes towards European institutions is directly opposed to the institutional
approach. Besides that, the evidence is weak. Only a few referenda are used to verify this theory. For those reasons, it will not be taken into the hypotheses, as the others will. Combined with the knowledge on the European legislative process, the role of lobbying in it and the explanations of citizens appreciation of both Europe in general and the institutions in particular, hypotheses will be synthesized. What is noticeably lacking in this research is the role of lobbyists within the democratic deficit and Euroscepticism. Citizen’s views on it are absent, let alone their views on its democratic legitimacy. Therefore, this thesis will be an exploratory research on that. But to understand how important lobbying is, its role in the political system and European policy process must be examined.
3.2 Theoretical frame: The Political System of the European Union and European Union Lobbying
Given that lobbying is an effort to try to influence the policy process, it is important to understand how that process works. So in this part, the legislative process of the EU will be summarized. There are several political discussions in the EU itself on how lobbying fits in that process. Added to that, are the theoretical discussions on how lobbying fits in this multilevel environment. A summarization of the research on how citizens view European politics in general will conclude this part. The latter cannot be ignored, since the negative views on European politics in general might be a huge factor in ascertaining the support of citizens of lobbying in general and lobbying strategies in particular when the lobbying is directed towards that European level.
3.2.1 The European Union legislative process
The three most important actors in the legislative process are the European
Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union. Besides these actors, there are several offices of civil servants, representatives of member states and off course, lobbyists (Versluis et al., 2011: 155). The European Commission can be seen as an administration, containing 28 members, one for each member state. Almost every Commissioner presides over a directorate-‐general, a civil service that implements policy. These directorates-‐general are divided in varying policy areas (European
Commission (1), 2014). These members are put forward by the administrations of the member states. The European parliament then has the possibility to question the
candidate commissioners. In theory, only a new Commission as a whole can be rejected, but in practice, individual candidates can be forced to step down through political pressure. It is important to note that the Commissioners are never directly elected, so it could be argued that they lack a democratic mandate.
The European Parliament is directly elected by the citizens of each member state. It consists of 751 members, proportionally dispersed over the member states, although no
member state can have less than five or more than 99 members of the European Parliament (MEPs). Both the Commission and the Parliament have five-‐year mandates (European Parliament, 2014, European Commission (2), 2014).
The Council of the European Union, also called the Council of Ministers differs from the Commission and the Parliament in the fact that it consists of members without a direct European mandate (be it through citizens or administrations), but that it consists of members of the administrations of the member states. It meets in ten different
configurations, depending on the subject being discussed. Each member state delegates one minister in every configuration. A Permanent Representatives Committee,
commonly called Coreper, supports it, containing several committees, and below that 150 different workgroups. The process works bottom-‐up int the sense that decisions are prepared by the workgroups, then forwarded to committees, who then send the
legislation to a configuration of ministers. The presidency of the Council rotates every six months (Council of the European Union, 2014, Versluis et al., 2011:159). Depending on the issue, the aforementioned actors decide via different procedures.
The common legislative process between these three institutions, called ‘co-‐legislation’, is as follows. The European Commissions has the sole right of legislative initiative, which could be called debatable from a democratic standpoint, since the Commission obviously lacks a direct mandate from its citizens. It commonly tries to seek consensus, but when it is absent, one member can request a vote. A simple majority vote then decides the
outcome. The Commission meets every week (Versluis et al., 2011:167). When the Commission has decided upon certain legislation, it is then sent to the European
Parliament. Before it is formally sent to Parliament, both Parliament and the Council are consulted upon in the drafting phase of the proposal, although that consultation is
limited to a certain time frame. Consultation does not have to lead to consensus, which is the reason why debates in Parliament can still be very heated (Lehmann, 2009:48-‐49).
When it is formally sent to the Parliament, it can amend, adopt or reject legislation in two hearings. Rejected policies can be amended by the Commission and sent back to Parliament. This procedure makes negotiating between Commission and Parliament very common (Versluis et al., 2011:165). The decisions are commonly prepared in special committees, varying across policy areas. The formal voting procedure then
solidifies the position of the European Parliament in a monthly plenary meeting.
Parliament decides by majority vote. The reason why the legislative process is called ‘co-‐ decision’ is because when Parliament has voted on an issue, it is then sent to the Council of Ministers. Both actors have an equal vote in the matter. The president of the Council maintains an important position, because it directs Coreper and the committees and workgroups preparing the ministerial decisions. The presidency can decide whether certain workgroups or committees are to be consulted, and even push preferred items on the agenda. Very little legislation is actually voted upon. The reason for this is that because Council decisions are binding for all member states, most member states are prone to ‘give and take’, so as not to offend other member states who can decide over legislation that might be very inconvenient or unwanted by others. Roughly 80% of its legislation is decided by consensus, making the Council decisions heavily influenced by civil servants who prepare the decision process (and who obviously lack a democratic mandate).
Sometimes, the Commission puts pressure on individual member states on individual member states to enact certain legislation, sometimes even threatening with legal action. Because the ministers receive their mandates from national parliaments, these parliaments also look over the shoulder of their ministers in the Council. In any way, ministers still discuss roughly a third of the proposed legislation and vote upon roughly 20 %. When a vote is needed, the decision is made by qualified majority voting, wherein bigger member states receive more votes. All in all, the overall atmosphere between the aforementioned actors is one of bargaining, negotiating and the seeking of consensus. (Häge, 2008:540-‐541, 555-‐556, Hayes-‐Renshaw, 2009:72, Schmidt, 2000:55, Versluis et al, 2011:163-‐169).
What does this procedure mean to lobbying? Seeing that the Commission, Parliament and the Council have different (democratic) mandates, positions and in the legislative procedure, it means that there is a multi-‐level political playing field, which off course creates different opportunities, incentives and obstacles for lobbying.
