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Strategic lobby alliances
Could KLM and environmental NGOs join forces?
A cohesive approach to Single European Sky
Bas van der Sande
Student number: 10001586 University of Amsterdam Master: Political Science Track: International Relations Supervisor: Rosa Sanchez Second reader: Joost Berkhout Date: June 24, 2016
2 Table of Contents
1. Introduction: KLM and environmental NGOs – a potential partnership? ... 3
2. Theoretical Framework: Environmental and Business lobbying alliances – an integrated and longitudinal approach ... 6
• Institutional Perspective ... 7
• Actor Perspective ... 12
3. Operationalisation ... 15
4. Research design and Case selection ... 18
• KLM and environmental NGOs ... 18
• Single European Sky: a stalemate in European legislation ... 18
ATC Strikes and their environmental impact... 20
5. Methodology and data collection ... 22
Chapter 1 Why is a strategic lobby alliance on Single European Sky needed: an institutional perspective on partnerships. ... 24
• The problem-solving capacity of the EU ... 24
• Globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation ... 27
• Access and influence to the European institutions ... 30
Chapter 2 Single European Sky – a spurious reason for a strategic lobby alliance? ... 32
• KLM’s current lobby strategy on Single European Sky ... 32
• The risk of outside lobbing ... 34
• KLM and WNF ... 37
• Access to means and resources ... 39
• Common ground ... 41
• Expertise, eco marketing, creative innovative solutions and legitimacy. ... 43
• Mutual Gains Approach ... 44
8. Conclusions ... 47
9. References ... 51
Appendix 1 Interview Questions ... 58
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1. Introduction: KLM and environmental NGOs – a potential partnership?
“Emissions from international aviation grew by over 75% between 1990 and 2012. In 2014, the sector emitted more CO2 into the atmosphere than the combined emissions of the 129 lowest emitting countries. This is equivalent to 4.9% of all annual global warming. If international aviation were a country, its emissions would put it well into the top 20. With a business as usual scenario, aviation emissions are expected to grow by up to 300% by 2050! Under the Paris Agreement, countries have committed to present “economy-wide absolute emission reduction targets” and to limit global warming to 1.5°C. This objective of the Paris Agreement can only be fulfilled if the aviation industry, a top ten global polluter, contributes its fair share in reducing emissions rapidly” (Carbon Market Watch, 2016).
The ongoing trend of climate change and global warming raises important questions about how to ensure that the world becomes more sustainable. In response to these changes new agreements have been signed across the globe. The emissions of greenhouse gasses need to be addressed. Transport, and in particular aviation, is a large contributor to these emissions. In order to reduce its environmental impact regulation is being implemented by the European Union. The demand for air transport is ever growing and therefore the aviation industry faces growing environmental and social responsibilities (Kimber, 2007, Lynes & Andrachuk, 2008). Airlines need to engage in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs for several reasons: long-term financial strategy, eco-efficiencies, competitive advantages, good corporate citizenship, image enhancement or a desire to avoid regulatory actions (Lynes & Andrachuk, 2008). The literature in this field shows that there is an emerging trend of rapprochement between business and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) (Van Huijstee, 2010). Traditionally business and environmental NGOs have been opponents. However, the character of interactions between NGOs and businesses has changed in the last two decades of the 20th century. First of all the frequency and intensity of contact between businesses and NGOs have grown steadily. In the beginning of the 1990s NGOs began targeting big business to hold companies to account for the negative effects of their global conduct (Argenti, 2004, Heap, 2000). Firms responded to this by starting to engage with NGOs. Early interactions were relatively isolated incidents, but nowadays many businesses and NGOs sustain longstanding, constructive relationships with each other
4 (Van Huijstee, 2010). Second, striking for the changing character of interaction between business and NGOs is the shift from a generally confrontational character towards a more collaborative approach. Business could no longer ignore the social concern with regard to the negative environmental impacts of their corporate conduct and therefore choose to constructively engage with NGOs in their efforts to tackle environmental issues. The same applies to the NGOs who have opted for a collaborative approach towards business, in other words working together with companies instead of against them in search of a ‘win-win’, resulting in solutions that serve economic and environmental interests. (Van Huijstee, 2010). So if there is a trend towards more cooperation, is a strategic lobby alliance between KLM and environmental NGOs possible too?
Within aviation lobbying there are multiple issues (Single European Sky, Biofuels, REACH1) that aim to reduce the impact aviation has on the environment. KLM is one of the most sustainable airlines and has been the number one in the Dow Jones Sustainability index2 for multiple years (KLM, 2014). Traditionally, environmental NGOs oppose the aviation industry as a whole. Because of the negative impact aviation has on the environment the typical green-orientated NGOs disapprove of aviation and rather promote alternatives modes of transport (Milieudefensie, 2012). Currently there is hardly any cooperation between KLM and NGOs, especially not on lobbying. However, according to Arts (2002), both NGOs as businesses are disappointed in co-operation with government. The government is accused of being too much involved in slow, bureaucratic negotiation processes which leads to; the postponement of measures; the setting of vague compromises; and a lack of implementation (Arts, 2002). This is applicable to the case for the Single European Sky (SES) agreement; a European Commission initiative by which the design, management and regulation of airspace will be coordinated throughout the European Union (European Commission, 2016). Single European Sky would result in shorter flight plans which would reduce the emission of the European aviation industry with 10% a year. This means that there are economic and environmental gains for the European
1 REACH (EC 1907/2006) aims to improve the protection of human health and the environment through the better
and earlier identification of the intrinsic properties of chemical substances.
2 The DJSI World index features the best-performing 10% of the 2,500 biggest companies by market capitalization
worldwide. The DJSI Europe index contains the 20% highest rated enterprises in the DJ Europe 600 Europe index. Switzerland-based SAM (Sustainable Asset Management) Group, a financial asset manager specializing in SRI funds, evaluates performance in the economic, environmental and social fields. The evaluation is on a “best in class” basis for each activity sector. In 2009, 57% of the criteria applied by SAM Group for the airline sector were airline-sector specific.
5 aviation industry. However, it is still not implemented due to opposition from certain member states and private parties (e.g. Air Traffic Control).
Because both business and NGOs are disappointed with the government, the hypothesis tested in this thesis is whether a strategic single-issue lobby alliance among different stakeholders could contribute to the implementation of Single European Sky. Currently there are no coalitions between NGOs and the aviation industry to actively lobby together. In order to analyse why there are hardly partnerships between KLM and NGOs it is important to place it in context with their relationship with government and the level of interest representation. It has always been problematic to apply an ideal model of interest representation at the EU level, due to fragmentation and the complexity of EU policy making. According to Greenwood (2009) the multiplicity of access points and the diversity of actors points to a distinctive form of empowered pluralism. At this level there is a predominance of business interests and therefore the system can be conceptualised as ‘elite pluralism’ (Coen, 2007). According to Sanchez (2014) large firms generally have greater access to the European institutions than NGOs, but they do not invariably have better access to the policy making process. Whether they have the same level of access and the same level of influence is an important question to be examined within this research. To comprehend the research question of why there are no lobby coalitions, the interaction between NGOs and KLM will be analysed.
This thesis will present two different perspectives on partnerships. The first, the institutional perspective, examines what effect the European Union and its institutions have on partnerships and possibilities for interaction. The second, the actor perspective, examines what drives the different actors (in this case, business and NGOs) into partnerships. Along with these perspectives a lobby perspective will be presented, which explains the playing field in which they operate. When we combine the actors’ perspective with the institutional one we could contribute to the designing of a more cohesive approach of why there are no strategic lobby coalitions. When we have established the theoretical framework, the thesis is structured according to the two perspectives. In the first chapter the institutional pre-conditions for partnerships will be analysed in accordance with position papers on Single European Sky. In the second chapter the actor perspective will explain what the incentives are for strategic lobby coalitions and illustrates this with the finished KLM-WNF partnership.
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2. Theoretical Framework: Environmental and Business lobbying alliances – an integrated and longitudinal approach
The definition of partnerships is applicable to strategic lobby alliances. Partnership and strategic lobby alliance are interchangeable used in this thesis. There have been multiple interpretations of what a partnership is. Partnership is defined by Van Huijstee as a collaborative arrangement in which actors from two or more spheres of society (state, market and civil society) are involved in a non-hierarchical process, and through which these actors strive for a sustainability goal (Van Huijstee, 2010). Long and Arnold define partnerships as ‘voluntary collaborations between two or more organisations with a jointly-defined agenda focused on a discrete, attainable and potentially measurable goal’ (Long and Arnold, 1995). Partnerships are forging new relationships among industry, government, NGOs and other societal stakeholders and establishing new social values compatible with sustainability (Hartman, 1999). Collaboration is central to partnerships and is defined by Gray as ‘a process through which parties who see different aspects of a problem can constructively explore their differences and search for solutions that go beyond their own limited vision of what is possible’ (1989). For a strategic lobby alliance it is not required to set aside their differences, but collaboration requires stakeholders to build a common understanding of how problems appear by exchanging their points of view. In a short-term strategic alliance partners can cooperate to reach a certain goal while they are not constructive and there is no common understanding. Their interests simply converge on a single issue. How to overcome the issue of no common ground is explained by the Mutual Gains Approach, which will be addressed later.
The trend towards business-NGO collaboration has created the third wave of environmentalism (Van Huijstee, 2010). Stafford and Hartmann define this third wave of environmentalism as follows:
“Many environmental groups now are using their expertise and cloud to develop market-based programs that make ecology strategically attractive to industry. This mind set has diminished conflict between businesses and environmentalists, and the two are turning to one another for cooperation” (1996).
7 However, according to them the sole reason for business-NGO interactions – whether cooperative or confrontational – is to design, develop and implement corporate social responsibility (CSR). CSR departments are nowadays common in large companies and they contribute to social and environmental sustainability of the company, while trying to avoid the negative environmental impacts. The company takes it societal responsibility beyond economic and legal responsibilities (Van Huijstee, 2010). I question whether this truly the sole reason is for NGOs and business to interact. Reflecting Olsonian problems of coordinating larger and less focused formalised groups, in order to achieve collective action, incentives need to be created. Either individuals should be rewarded if they contribute to the collective action, or they should be punished if they do benefit from collective action without participating. Olson realised that the bigger the group the more difficult it is to overcome the free riding problem. Small groups tend to be more successful in collective action according to Olson (Olson, 2002). The public interest solution has been the creation of short-life issue networks that form and disband around a single focuses directive (Coen, 2004). Therefore, it is expected that rather than an extensive long-term partnership, strategic lobby alliances will be formed around specific issues. This way they will be more successful and effective. With this in mind it is expected that collaboration on Single European Sky could occur.
There are different perspectives to look at partnerships among NGOs and business. This thesis constructs it theoretical framework on two perspectives; the institutional and the actor perspective. The rest of the thesis will be developed upon these two perspectives. Where the institutional perspective attempts to explain possible partnerships in the light of what the European institutions have for influence on them, the actor perspective will analyse the motivations for private actors to engage in business-NGO interactions and accordingly looks at under which conditions the character of the interactions may take a collaborative form.
Institutional Perspective
The institutional perspective attempts to explain possible partnerships in the light of what the European institutions have for effect on them. It answers questions as why there are partnerships needed and where they come from. It focuses on global processes and the existing institutional arrangements. Partnerships are primarily understood as new institutional arrangements, which shape the governance of environmental issues (Van Huijstee, 2010). So far the literature has
8 delivered insights on three main themes. The first theme is focussed on the drivers behind the emergence and increased importance of business-NGO interactions. The general consensus among authors in this theme is that process of globalisation, liberalisation, and privatisation have stimulated the formation of business-NGO arrangements as new forms of governance of public affairs beyond state governance (Arts, 2002, Jessop, 1998, Merrien, 1998). The article of Goetz and Graham discusses the recent academic analyses of aviation, which have been dominated by a shared focus on the effects of liberalisation and competition, and latterly by the impacts of globalisation (2004). Policy-making for aviation has been concerned largely with the regulation of imperfections in the liberalised, competitive and increasingly globalised market-place. Policy-makers will be forced to address these issues because projected growth rates for air transport in excess of 5% per annum are incompatible with the awareness that infinite mobility is not attainable. Despite much research, it is not at all clear how globalisation, liberalisation and sustainability are interrelated in the context of transport industries. Goetz and Graham mention two perspectives: one theoretical perspective maintains that globalisation and liberalisation strategies have rationalised the airline sector into a more efficient operation that enhances long-term sustainability. An alternative perspective argues that globalisation and liberalisation have resulted in excessive air traffic growth and wasteful competition, thereby exacerbating negative social and environmental externalities incompatible with long-term sustainability.(Goetz and Graham, 2004) Airlines aim at enhancing demand for air transport, but it should not automatically assumed that this aim is incompatible with sustainability principles, because they might conceivably lead to more efficient use of aircraft and airports. It can be assumed that the first perspective is generally more common among the aviation industry itself, while the second perspective is to be agreed upon among environmentalists. According to Greene and Wegener (1997) policies which mitigate the environmental impacts of transport are frequently surpassed by countervailing market developments.
Some scholars observe partnerships as a response to the democratic deficit caused by these processes (Van Huijstee, 2010). Partnerships from the institutional perspective focus on society at large and on the institutional arrangements existing in past, current and future societies. Partnerships are new institutional arrangements and contribute to and shape the governance of environmental issues. Some of them even engage in private environmental governance, meaning that they are now actively engaged in the provision of environmental
9 governance mechanisms outside of the state system (Falkner, 2009). A major issue authors are concerned with is the role partnerships play and the functions they fulfil in a presumed new environmental governance regime. Arts’ study on green alliances of business and NGOs is a good example of the institutional perspective, where he examines their contribution to the environmental policy making and regulations. He builds upon the policy arrangements approach resulting in an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of green alliances as policy arrangements, followed by recommendation to overcome these weaknesses (Arts, 2002).
The article “Environmental and Business Lobbying Alliances in Europe Learning from Washington” by David Coen explores the political reality of environmental public policymaking at the EU institutional level and the mechanisms by which large firms influence the agenda-setting and policy formulation process in Brussels member states (2004). Environmentalists are mobilised at the European level, however business has a strategic resource advantage in lobbying and takes a prominent role in both formulation and implementation of EU environmental directives (Grant 2000; Jordon 2002). Environmental groups recognise these potential structural problems of influence, but are aware of their potential agenda-setting power (Mazey and Richardson 2001). Therefore, many are involved in complex multilevel advocacy coalitions with business and other public policy interests (Coen 1998; Sabatier 1998; Young and Wallace 2000). Coen explores the development of a complex ‘elite pluralism’ that favours business interests in EU policy formulation, and compares this new business-government relationship with the recent U.S. experience. So if in other sectors environmental groups work together with business, why do they not work together on aviation? Is aviation too complex or is there no salience on the issue? And how do other sectors do work together?
Since the recent European Commission Green Paper on Governance – which called for horizontal alliances, complex multilevel and institutional advocacy – coalitions have come in place. Businesses wishing to lobby directly on environmental issues have had to incorporate consumer demands and green lobby positions into their political strategies (Grant et al. 2000; Young and Wallace 2000). Coalitions in the 1990s were often short-lived and issue-specific, but business lobbying is now seen as a managed multilevel process with numerous feedback loops and entry points constrained by the size of the firm, lobbying budgets and the nature of the policy area (Coen and Dannreuther, 2003). Whether KLM and NGOs can influence the implementation
10 of Single European Sky will depend on whether they can establish a reputation as a provider of reliable, issue-specific, and pan-European information (Coen, 2007). In general the more stakeholders agree the more influence they will have. They would need to combine inside lobbying within the elite pluralist system with an extensive outside lobbying campaign in order to improve the public image of aviation, which relates to eco-marketing. Coen defined elite pluralism as an interest arrangement where ‘access is generally restricted to a few policy players, for whom membership is competitive and strategically advisable’ (Coen, 2007). Greenwood stressed the importance of the institutionalisation of outsider groups to the point that they are able to drive policy initiatives (Greenwood, 2007). However he says that this proves how pluralist the system is, and that there are still huge asymmetries of power. The fragmentation of power in a multi-level governance system and the confederate nature of groups mean that specific interests have the disadvantage of restriction, and diffuse interests have the advantage of autonomy (Greenwood, 2007). So we can assume that KLM is present in this elite pluralist system, but that they will have to improve their reputation on sustainability to have more lobby impact on environmental issues. NGOs like Greenpeace and WNF are part of the elite since they are member of the Green103.
‘The rise of the green movement in Western Europe, the acceptance of the need for cross
border collaboration on environmental problems, and the removal of nontariff barriers in the Single Market have endorsed the importance of the European Union’ (Coen, 2004).
On environmental issues there is a tendency to move towards flexible and poor implementation with recognition of minimum standards (Jordan, 2002). Contemporary policy forums suggest the institutionalisation of large corporations in the EU policy process. The institutional perspective in this thesis will try to find an answer to this and questions whether NGOs are institutionalised as well. Reflecting Olsonian problems of coordinating larger and less focused formalised groups, the public interest solution has been the creation of short-life issue networks that form and disband around a single focuses directive. A successful example is the European Campaign for Clear Air. While there were differences in the aims of consumer groups, citizens, and environmental groups, they found common ground on environmental questions. While actively
3 The Green 10 are ten of the largest environmental organisations and networks active on the European level. They
coordinate joint responses and recommendations to EU decision makers. Membership of the Green 10 alone is more than 20 million people.
11 lobbying as a coalition and broadening the scope of the environmental debate, all groups maintained individual identities and positions relating to potential countervailing issues. However, no businesses were involved.
Despite this successful example, environmental groups suffer from a number of problems of organisation at EU level. The Commission has provided small amounts of funds to facilitate the mobilisation of groups such as European Environmental Bureau, Friends of the Earth, and World Wildlife. However, they areas still underrepresented at the EU, relative to member state capitals or Washington D.C. This alliance plus Greenpeace, Climate Network Europe, Birdlife International, and the European Transport and Environment Federation, has a credible political mass but still can only mobilise some thirty people (McCormick, 2001). This alliance has been known for a lack of common identity, allowing business to cherry pick short life political alliance with the environmental groups in Brussels. Environmental groups are disadvantaged insofar as environmental issues are subject to the salience of the public debate. Effective environmental lobbying in Brussels requires not only developing a legitimate voice and constituency, but also being able to maintain a stable presence over a period of time (McCormick, 2001). So while there are business-alliances with environmental groups, there are still none on aviation. Why this is not happening will be addressed in the analysis. It is assumed though that because of the funds available for environmental groups, they too are institutionalised. Therefore there might be no incentive to form a strategic lobby alliance, since they already have inside access to the institutions.
Member states show a great reluctance to hand over redistributive powers such as taxation to the supranational level (Coen, 2004). It can be assumed that handing over sovereignty over ones airspace falls into this category as well. Business lobby characteristics according to Coen are; an increase in direct business lobbying of the European institutions, particularly at the EC, regulatory competencies, and collective and direct strategies with national and European mobilisation (Coen, 2004). An elite pluralist environment has evolved where business has a favoured position in agenda-setting at the European institution level and is known for ‘issue-by-issue’ and ‘mix and match’ tactics. The European environmental lobbyists have strengthened their potential agenda-setting niche and embedded themselves in the formulation process by ‘cooperative lobbying strategies’ with business to a greater extent than their American
12 counterparts (Coen, 2004). The pre-conditions that will be checked are to what extent: the problem-solving capacity of the EU has influence on the formation of partnerships; the influence of processes of globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation; and to what extent the actors have access to and influence on the EU.
Actor Perspective
The second theme focuses on the motivations for private actors to engage in business-NGO interactions and accordingly looks at under which conditions the character of the interactions may take a collaborative form. Since there are an emerging number of interactions between NGOs and businesses, it can be assumed that a process of institutionalisation is in place. The actor perspective looks at partnerships as instruments for the advancement of actor specific goals, for example: a way for businesses to fill in their corporate social responsibility strategy and to make their product more sustainable. The goal of studying partnerships from the actor perspective is to understand and clarify partnership processes and try to improve these processes through recommendations based on their findings (Van Huijstee, 2010). According to Van Huijstee all literature results in practical recommendations on when, how and with whom to partner and on how to arrange the process. Recommendations often take the form of checklists, do’s and don’ts, and related types of advice.
So what preconditions need to be met to form a partnership? The literature suggests that access to means and resources is widely acknowledged as an important advantage for all partners in a partnership. Especially NGOs can partner to get financial means and to create markets for sustainable products. A partnership with a company can be of great help in ‘scaling up’ their activities (Cowe, 2004). Other advantages often mentioned are access to knowledge and expertise, creative innovative solutions, eco marketing and legitimacy. Eco marketing is framed as a very important motive for companies to partner. If done well, partnering with other societal parties can enhance the image of a company within the company itself, with NGOs, and with consumers. Thus companies can gain a competitive advantage through partnering (Van Huijstee, 2010). This threefold improvement of the company’s image is remarkable because at the same time it creates a potential risk for the NGO – a NGO could be accused of collaborating with their traditional enemies instead of putting them under pressure (Hemmati, 2002). According to Argenti most people seem only to question the credibility of a NGO when the NGO has
13 partnered with a corporation that the public views as having suspicious motives (2004). This means that the NGO suffers a legitimacy loss and have a hard time explain to the members why their contribution is going into partnership with the traditional enemy. The role of organized civil society in the EU democratic legitimacy depends on features of the group design and power dynamics. When business groups are internally united, lobby on highly technical issues, and mainstream committees examine their proposals, they tend to prevail (Rasmussen, 2014).
Is this applicable too for environmental collaboration? Broscheid defines three different types of lobbying system: (1) systems with high lobbying costs and few lobbyists, (2) systems with low lobbying costs, high demand for procedural legitimacy, and many lobbyists, or (3) system with low lobbying costs, low demand for legitimacy, and the selection of inside lobbyists by the Commission (Broscheid, 2003). The three systems of Broscheid are useful but very case-driven. According to Kollman public opinion constrains the behaviour of interest groups, and interest groups influence public opinion, especially through increasing the salience of issues (1998). This could be an asset of the strategic alliance, in order to attract attention to the actual implementation of Single European Sky and could be an argument for collaboration between NGOs and KLM and this would justify using an outside lobbying campaign. Outside lobbying is defined as attempts by interest group leaders to mobilise citizens outside the policy-making-community. There are records of outside lobbying campaigns against KLM conducted by environmental NGOs. This conceivably affects the potential of strategic alliances on the Single European Sky initiative. In the second chapter this will be analysed.
A growing number of corporations have begun to integrate environmental objectives into their business operations and developed more proactive forms of corporate environmental strategy (Hoffman, 1997). Following this theoretical framework we can assume that NGOs and business have good reasons to collaborate. Following the general trend of rapprochement between environmental NGOs and business, it can be assumed that there are good reasons for strategic lobby alliances. Whether this is the case for the Single European Sky initiative will be analysed in the next two chapters. If it is established that there are incentives to start collaboration, the Mutual Gains Approach will help to set out a strategy to overcome the differences of the different actors. Mutual Gains Approach (MGA) is a process model, based on experimental findings and actual cases. It lays out four steps for negotiating better outcomes
14 despite no common ground and maintains relationships and reputation. MGA is not the same as ‘Win-Win’ and does not focus on ‘being nice’ or finding ‘common ground’. It emphasizes careful analysis and good process management. The four steps of the Mutual Gains Approach are explained in the article ‘Implementing a Mutual Gains Approach to Collective Bargaining’ by L. Susskind (1991):
1. Preparation
Prepare by understanding interests and alternatives and estimate the best alternative to a negotiated agreement. If you have a good alternative to agreement, it will increase your power at the table.
2. Value Creation
Create value by inventing without committing. Here the different parties should advance options by asking ‘what if…?’ By examining different options parties can discover additional interests, or generate opportunities for joint gains.
3. Value Distribution
The value should be divided by objective criteria. This way everyone’s ‘fair share’ of the value created can be justified
4. Follow Trough
Imagine future challenges and their solutions. It is wise to include specific provisions that focus on monitoring the status of commitments and communicating regularly. This way the agreement will have more chance of being successful. (Susskind, 1991).
The Mutual Gain Approach will be used to analyse whether this would be solution to the current lack of collaboration. First we will look at what influence the European institutions have on the formation of strategic lobby alliances in chapter one.
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3. Operationalisation
The broad research question of why are there no lobby coalitions between KLM and environmental NGOs is approached by looking at the way collaboration between business and NGOs arises. The general assumption that led to the research question is that if KLM and NGOs join forces in lobbying the EU to implement Single European Sky they both prevail. The research question therefore is ‘Why are there no strategic lobby alliances between KLM and environmental NGOs on Single European Sky?’ Whether and how this occurs is approached through the institutional and actor perspective. If the pre-conditions of the institutional perspective are met, then why is there no collaboration? And when there are clear incentives from the actor perspective to collaborate, then why do they not? When we combine the actors’ perspective with the institutional one we could contribute to the designing of a more integrated approach. Starting from the institutional perspective we can see where in general partnerships come from, but we need the actor perspective to elaborate further on why there a no partnerships between KLM and NGOs. And we will need theories of lobbying on why there are no joint lobby strategies. According to the existing theories there are several good conditions for partnerships: ‘access to financial resources, access to knowledge and expertise, creative innovative solutions, eco marketing and legitimacy.
The first question concerns the pre-conditions of a partnership between business and NGOs. Institutions are defined by Kerremans as the context in which strategic interactions take place and where collective action will occur. They are not active but passive players, who shape expectations and limit options and because of that, they create constraints and opportunities (Kerremans, 2001). Therefore, institutionalism is how institutions affect the possibilities of partnerships. This includes the decision-making rules and the rules for interest group participation (e.g. whether the EU is open to interest groups and what type of access). As mentioned in the theoretical framework we need to analyse which pre-conditions for a partnerships need to be met before collaboration can occur. When we have established these pre-conditions we can analyse to which extent these prepre-conditions apply to the Single European Sky case. This first section will provide an answer to the question to what extent and how business and NGOs respond to new partnerships from the institutional perspective. The institutional perspective explains the role and function of partnerships in a (global) environmental governance regime. In order to address this issue it is important to break down the societal context in which
16 the partnership phenomenon could emerge. Processes of globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation can help to explain the rise of partnerships. Globalisation led to enormous growth in aviation, while liberalisation and privatisation changed the business cases of airlines (Button, 2008). These three trends are believed to have led to the emergence of new organisation forms, through a process known as ‘sector-blurring’. Environmental issues are a key example of this, as pollution of aviation is not divided per nation but global. These large-scale problems call for shared efforts of actors throughout all sectors, from the local to the global level. Intersectoral partnerships with a sustainable development aim can be interpreted as one such new configuration (Van Huijstee, 2010) This intersectoral partnership combines needs for which responsibilities traditionally were separated: business for economic development, government for the protection of public goods, and civil society for the enhancement of civility and social cohesion (of which environmental quality is an important aspect). It is to be expected that the shared responsibility of achieving sustainable aviation requires intersectoral alliances. From policy papers and position papers we can analyse whether the three processes mentioned can be a reason to form a partnership. As partnerships are considered a response to the limited problem-solving capacity of governments, the functions attributed to them tend to respond to this deficit. It will be analysed to which degree the privatisation and globalisation has taken place and what influence they have on lobby strategies. The assumed problem-solving capacity of the government is to be taken into account by analysing the complexity of the issue.
The second sub question will try to explain why there is no lobby coalition between KLM and NGOs from the actor perspective; which sees partnerships as a way for businesses to fill in their corporate social responsibility strategy and to make their production more sustainable. This will be interesting to test in interviews with the CSR department of KLM. This perspective does not question the partnership phenomenon as such, nor does it look at as a possible solution for general and fundamental societal problems. The actor perspective will not try to find a solution for sustainable aviation in general, but will look into a single case study and will examine what there is to win, so in this case the Single European Sky file. It will analyse the potential wins and losses for each actor to see if a strategic lobby alliance is justified. To do this, the literature on partnerships and lobbying are combined. This perspective is aimed at improving the design of partnerships as a strategic device for the agencies involved. In order to measure what needs to be improved we first need to analyse the case. According to the literature the risks of intersectoral
17 partnerships are distorting responsibilities and tasks, possible legitimacy loss, cultural differences between parties, and insecure outcomes. These conditions are to be expected to come up in the interviews to explain the lack of partnerships.
‘A standard approach to the study of business power has been to treat business actors as interest groups that seek to influence policy outcomes within the state’ (Falkner, 2009). Partnerships between business and NGOs are called ‘green alliances’, and are based on the idea of self-governance without (much) interference of the state. They are conceptualised as a specific type of private environmental policy arrangement. First of all, both NGOs and companies are private actors. However, they differ in aim; NGOs have a public aim (promoting a common good such as the environment) while companies have a private one (profit). Yet, this distinction has been blurred as NGOs become more business-like and companies have acknowledged their societal responsibilities. So actually NGOs and companies are private actors with both private and public aims. When they participate in green alliances, they both have a public aim: to improve environmental quality by designing and implementing environmental policy. There are several conditions that need to be met before we can speak of a green alliance; actors and their coalitions, power relations, rules of the game, and programmes and discourses (Arts, 2002).
Literature on the actor perspective has generated a long list of success factors. The common success factors are careful choice of subjects, goals and partners, and to work in a respectful, open way and mutual trust. It will be examined to which extent these factors are present in the Single European Sky initiative. These factors are assumed to be the foundation for collaboration, but as parties are often not used to work together and might even be former ‘enemies’, building trust and taking time to do so is considered to be very important (Arts, 2002). The idea that partnerships have a role to play in global environmental governance is hardly contested, it is rather assumed to be self-evident. Arts stresses the importance of ‘embeddedness’ of NGO-business partnerships within the core businesses of companies and in formal public policy making on the environment.
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4. Research design and Case selection
KLM and environmental NGOs
The reason why KLM has been selected as airline of interest is that KLM has a clear and strong sustainability program: KLM takes Care. KLM feels it is important to take responsibility in contributing to a better world. They are involved in many initiatives, from introducing biofuels to improving children’s living conditions. For these continuous efforts they have been the number one in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for several years. KLM is actively working on the development and use of sustainable biofuels (together with WNF) and is working on sustainable solutions for reducing CO2 emissions. KLM is often a frontrunner, therefore it the best airline to select as most-likely case when talking about possible partnerships between an airline and environmental NGO. If there is a strategic lobby alliance possible between them it will increase prospects for generalisation to other alliances.
The selection of environmental NGOs has been based on the presence in the Netherlands and their relevance to aviation and their reputation. Large NGOs as WNF and Greenpeace are obviously to include, but smaller players as Toekomst Luchtvaart are relevant as well. It is important to have a broad stakeholder map of these environmental NGOs, because they might have different incentives and different positions on aviation. The reason to only choose a single airline instead of multiple is because KLM has a clear strategy on sustainability and because it is the only large airline in the Netherlands. The imbalance of one airline versus multiple NGOs has to be taken into account in order not to get a biased analysis. This is reduced by involving different stakeholders in the series of interviews to get a more holistic approach on the topic.
Single European Sky: a stalemate in European legislation
The Single European Sky is selected as case-study since its genuine aim is two-folded: to improve the environment and to improve air space efficiency benefiting the airlines. Therefore it is a most-likely case because both airlines and NGOs are assumed to be in favour of such initiative. A most-likely case is expected to clearly confirm this proposition (Flyvbjerg 2006). However, whereas it seems to be a clear priority for airlines, it is a priority for NGOs? To which extent can this initiative be generalised to other policy areas is to be seen. Why would a strategic alliance between KLM and environmental NGOs on Single European Sky be enough to
19 overcome the opposition of the member states and ATC bonds is a question which will be answered in the discussion. Below is a summary of the impact assessment of the European Commission done in 2011.
Commission Staff working Paper – Impact assessment.
“The creation of a Single European Sky (SES) was one of the main measures to address the rising density of air traffic and to rationalise air traffic management (ATM) in Europe. It was to put an end to the fragmentation of the European airspace which was highly inefficient and cost the industry dearly. A single sky would also have positive environmental effects as airplanes would be able to fly more direct routes and hence consume less fuel per flight. Once established, it is expected to triple capacity, increase safety by a factor of ten, halve ATM costs and reduce the environmental impact of each flight by 10%.
Slow and insufficient progress in the implementation of the SES prompted the Commission to strengthen the existing legislative framework through the adoption of the “SES II package” in 2008208, which, among others, introduced a firm deadline (December 2012) for the creation of functional airspace blocks (FAB), a crucial element of the SES initiative. The FABs will be based on operational requirements rather than national borders and contribute to a substantial consolidation of ATM activities in Europe. The reluctance of Member States to pool their sovereignty in this field needs to be overcome. Some progress appears to have occurred in the wake of the ash cloud crisis in spring 2010, when the Council has given the highest priority to the acceleration and anticipation of the implementation of the SES.209 The SES II package also foresees the creation of an independent performance review body which defines EU-wide targets with a view to improving the performance of ATM in the areas of safety, environment, capacity and cost efficiency. The need for such a body has become apparent in the last couple of years when airlines increasingly complained about the rising costs of, in their view, relatively unproductive and inefficient ATM services and when the need to improve the environmental performance of air traffic has become more and more urgent”(European Commission, 2011).
20
ATC Strikes and their environmental impact
European Air Traffic Controllers fear that when SES would be implemented this would mean a loss of jobs. The strikes are in protest of critical reforms being planned to bring the management of Europe’s airspace with efficiencies that would be delivered by the Single European Sky (SES). “There are more borders in the skies over Europe than exist on land. And that comes at a great cost. In 2012, over 130 million hours of potentially productive time were wasted because of delays that could have been prevented with SES” said Tyler. Eurocontrol estimates that:
“The failure to implement SES resulted in 70 million minutes of delays for aircraft in 2012. SES
would transform the costly and inefficient patchwork of 37 civilian air traffic control organisations in Europe into a seamless and efficient air traffic management system safely accommodating growth in demand for travel and shipping” (IATA, 2014).
According to IATA’s own research the implementation of SES can be done without a single controller losing his or her job. However, ATC employees strike for other purposes too. According to research done by Ryanair, there have been 50 days of strike action by French ATC union since 2009, closing the skies of Europe, and causing cancellations for millions of travellers across Europe. Ryanair has frequently called on European authorities to take action to prevent more ATC strikes (Guardian, 2016). When Air Traffic Control employees strike the impact on flight paths are huge. On the next page figure 1 shows how everyday flights are taking de-tours due to military airspace, and figure 2 and 3 show self-collected data through Flightradar24, and show the de-routing of flights while the French Air Traffic Control was on strike on the 20th of March this year. These considerable de-routings result in additional use of kerosene which leads to extra, unnecessary emissions. The implementation of a Single European Sky would reduce the impact that a national strike would have on the flightpaths, since the system would be centrally controlled.
Following this line of thought, it is to be expected that both environmental NGOs and airlines are in favour of fewer strikes because flights would not have to de-route. Whether they support the motives behind the ATC-unions to strike or not, is not relevant for this case, since they could still strike after the implementation of SES, but the impact on the flights would have been tackled. Therefore this could be the common ground to start with.
21
Figure 1. On a normal flight from Zurich to Amsterdam KLM flies 220 kilometers extra due to restricted
military air space. This results in extra unnecessary emissions. Figure 2 and 3 show how flights paths are disrupted when French Air Traffic Controllers strike. Enormous de-routing occurs, which results in extra emissions.
22
5. Methodology and data collection
For the studying of business-NGO partnerships mainly literature studies and case studies are used. Studies on the appropriateness, adequacy and effectiveness of partnerships as governance arrangements are mostly theoretical exercises, complemented with practical examples and literature comparison. This thesis will work in the same way and thus will follow a qualitative approach, so also in-depth document analysis, and semi-structured interviews with people from interest organisations which have been active in a policy process. It has to be noted that in a lot of literature the research methods are quite often not specified.
To get an in-depth answer of the research question not only a document analysis is needed but also a series of in-depth interviews with relevant NGOs and relevant departments of KLM. This way I do not only investigate objective pre-conditions, but also the perceptions of the actors involved. NGOs of interest are Greenpeace, WNF, Friends of the Earth, ‘Natuur&Milieu’, ‘Milieudefensie’, ‘Het Groene Brein’, and Transport & Environment. To get a more holistic view on the subject interviews with third-parties will be conducted to; for example a public-affairs-specialist and an aviation-scientist. To counterbalance the majority of NGOs multiple people at KLM will be interviewed, the departments of Public Affairs and Corporate Social Responsibility will be of most interest. In Appendix 2 there is an overview of the interviews that took place. In total there have been eight interviews conducted. Two interviews were held with representatives of KLM: Marlijn Winkelman as Head of Public Affairs, and Fokko Kroessen as Manager of the CSR department. From the environmental side I spoke with Christian Nobel (Natuur&Milieu), Harry Buurma (Werkgroep Toekomst Luchtvaart), Arjet Stevens, a Renewables & Environment Professional at WNF Netherlands, and Paul Peeters (professor sustainable transport and environment). I also spoke to a public-affairs strategist on environmental issues, Myrthe Kusse and with a government official on aviation, Michael Lunter. These series of interviews gave me a chance to have a balanced position on sustainable aviation and Single European Sky. To include a public affair expert, a government official and a scientist on aviation helped me to generate a more objective analysis. Interesting to notice before the analysis is that I often spoke with people who are lobbyists, which led to very convincing answers from their point of view. The analysis will point this out, but will draw conclusions at the end. The interview was semi-structured, resulting in a two-folded approach, build up from the theoretical framework. The first section holds the institutional perspective, while the second section holds the actor perspective.
23 Partnerships, as defined before, will be operationalized as a constructive dialogue where a strategic lobby alliance on Single European Sky is created, rather than having any financial partnership. Financial resources are not necessary for collaboration on lobby strategies. This semi-structured interview is most appropriate for the purpose of this thesis because of the qualitative in-depth knowledge that they can generate (Bouwen, 2004). Structured interviews with closed questions would have been too deterministic to conduct because they would lack the level of exploratory nature of this research. It is best to let the respondent talk about his/her experience as freely as possible. This way the most information will be generated, but to ensure that all necessary information is exchanged a set of questions have been prepared (see Annex 1).
The structure of the interview is two-folded. First, questions about the institutional perspective on partnerships and lobby strategies will be asked. Second, we will look into the actor perspective, to explain more in depth what has influenced the decisions made by the organisations. It is important that the respondent can speak freely about this subject. Possible weaknesses are that there will be no official point of view from either side. It is to be expected that the NGOs as well as KLM will have a well substantiated argument on possible arguments and that they will enlighten this in the interviews. There are policy papers from the NGOs available on sustainable aviation. These will be analysed, as will EU policy documents and other stakeholders positions will be taken into account. KLM has a specific website on sustainability (www.klmtakescare.com) and this will be the basis for her policy on sustainability. This way the data will be triangulated and combined with the interviews we can give a holistic overview of sustainable aviation. Objective data is combined with actors’ opinions and perceptions; therefore the analysis has to carefully distinguish fact and opinion.
24
Chapter 1
Why is a strategic lobby alliance on Single European Sky needed: an institutional perspective on partnerships.European integration removed barriers and borders. It created an open and single market within the European Union, but these barriers and borders in the sky remained. The Single European Sky initiative is set out to end this. This chapter analyses why – from the institutional perspective – a strategic lobby alliance could be a solution to the impasse the Single European Sky initiative is in. It will discuss whether the institutional pre-conditions for partnerships will be met in accordance with position papers on Single European Sky. In addition the data from the interviews will be taken into account in order to deepen the analysis. The pre-conditions that will be checked are: the problem-solving capacity of the EU; the influence of processes of globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation; and to which extent the actors have access to and influence on the EU. While since the launch of the SES initiative in 2000, two packages of legislation have been adopted and almost fully implemented, there still is not the desired full implementation of Single European Sky. Therefore the problem at this stage is not decision-making, but implementation. The institutional setting at the EU makes it possible to establish alliances between airlines and NGOs, since we see the emergence of other alliances in other sectors. In order to keep this issue high on the agenda salience needs to be maintained. One way of doing this is by lobbying. KLM and other airlines are in favour of the Single European Sky initiative; however they have not yet reached their goal. A new way of approaching the problem from the perspective of KLM is by involving environmental NGOs into their lobby strategy and form a single-issue strategic lobby alliance.
The problem-solving capacity of the EU
The institutional perspective expects that partnerships can be formed when the problem-solving capacity of the government is limited. Intersectoral partnerships with a sustainable development aim can be interpreted as one such new configuration (Van Huijstee, 2010). These will arise when actors are disappointed in the government. In order to establish who is responsible for ensuring that aviation becomes sustainable, the interviews started with this question. It gave useful insight into how they perceived the sustainability issue and how to precede the interview. According to KLM the responsibility is two-folded. On the one hand the industry should look at what they can do themselves. KLM has multiple programs on sustainability; like flying as light
25 as possible, optimising fuel-efficiency and serving sustainable fish, but they cannot influence the entire process (KLM, 2016). KLM is dependent on aircraft manufactures and their innovations. Therefore a source-based approach is needed. On the other hand, in a heavily regulated industry, the government needs to be held responsible too. National governments make agreements about safety and environmental goals and they should motivate innovative solutions, and support bio-fuel programs with subsidies since there is no market for it yet (Interview 5 and 6). Environmental interviewees responded that ultimately the government is responsible. In a lot of transport sectors innovations in technique can ensure that despite growth sustainable transport can be achieved, however this is (currently) not possible for aviation. WNF adds to this: ‘grow the business not the carbon’ (Interview 7). Therefore, if you want aviation to become sustainable you are asking the sector to limit its own growth, which is unrealistic. The government needs to take responsibility to regulate this growth. Chris Nobel (Natuur&Milieu) stated that it is also a responsibility of the consumer – he/she should make a conscious choice (Interview 2). Though Greenpeace was not available for an interview, they did give a statement which was:
"Greenpeace is campaigning for clean energy, strong forests, lively oceans, sustainable
agriculture, clean water and a toxic-free world. In order to work effectively, we must limit ourselves to our goals. Although the topic that describes you certainly deserves attention, it does not belong to our attention. In line with other NGOs, Greenpeace too finds that the government should be held responsible for ensuring that aviation becomes sustainable" (Greenpeace, 2016,
pers. comm., 16 June).
So if the government is most responsible, what has it done so far to implement Single European Sky? Single European Sky aims to reduce the fragmentation of European airspace and increase capacity by introducing additional rules on airspace management, safety, interoperability and cost transparency. The legislation adopted in 2009 by the Council and European Parliament (SESII), which is intended to accelerate the implementation of the actual Single European Sky from 2012 onwards, has been partly implemented and its results can therefore be measured (European Commission, 2015). According to the own data of the European Commission, with regard to the environment, horizontal flight efficiency (shorter routes) improved to some extent in 2013 (5.11 %) but did not meet the target (4.92%). In 2014, flight efficiency stood at 4.9 %, falling short of the target of 4.67 % for the first reference period. Airlines sometimes preferred to
26 fly the cheapest routes (in terms of charging zones) rather than the shortest (European Commission, 2015). This would mean that with a Single European Sky the distribution of costs should be borne fairly, so this would stop the incentive of not to flying the most environmental-efficient route. While social conditions and employment have been improving for air transport sector employees over the last years, there are still industrial actions from the ATC sector. Even a small scale strike leads to major disruptions in the network, causing massive flight delays, inefficiencies, with secondary impacts on business and the environment. The Single European Sky has positively impacted ATM over the past years from an environmental perspective. This was mainly the result of the SESAR project4. In fact, SESAR technology and operational improvements enables more direct flight paths and smooth descent and climbing. In this context, a major operational achievement was the start of the implementation of free routing in upper airspace allowing more direct routes, cost saving and reduction in CO2 emissions (European Commission, 2015). This could be an argument for KLM to prove to environmental NGOs that SES is contributing to a better environment.
Despite the government being held most responsible for ensuring the sustainability of aviation, the complexity of the issue gives reason for intersectoral partnerships. Therefore, is the EU the best placed actor to establish regulations on the topic? Following the theoretical framework the rise of the green movement in Western Europe, the acceptance of the need for cross border collaboration on environmental problems, and the removal of nontariff barriers in the Single Market have endorsed the importance of the European Union. According to all respondents the EU is not the best place to establish regulations since aviation is set in an international level playing field. Therefore it should be met at an ICAO-level5. Nonetheless, Europe can take a leading role, which is supported by KLM as long as the international level playing field is acknowledged (Interview 6). For the Single European Sky initiative the EU is obviously the best placed actor to establish this system, since one global Air Traffic Control system would not be manageable. What actions need to be taken then to fully implement SES? In 2015-2019 the EU should focus on fully implementing SESII and start to implement SESII+, once adopted, which is in the hand of the co-legislators. There needs to be continued investment
4 SESAR is a collaborative project to completely overhaul European airspace and its air traffic management (ATM).
The actual programme is managed by the SESAR Joint Undertaking as a public–private partnership (PPP)
27 in the SESAR project which brings major improvements in the way the air traffic management system works in Europe. What is important is that safety, cost-efficiency, capacity and environmental sustainability should be the top priorities for all stakeholders involved (European Commission, 2015). The difficulty here is that it has to be implemented by member states. Not all member states are willing to give up their sovereignty of their air space. Especially the Gibraltar issue is blocking process: the dispute over sovereignty over the territory in which the airport of Gibraltar is situated. The Gibraltar dispute between Spain and the United Kingdom needs to be addressed at the highest levels of representation (Council of the EU, 2013).
Globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation
The general consensus among authors is that process of globalisation, liberalisation, and privatisation have stimulated the formation of business-NGO arrangements as new forms of governance of public affairs beyond state governance (Arts, 2002, Jessop, 1998, Merrien, 1998). Aviation is a global business which flourishes on processes of liberalisation and privatisation. Two lines of thought are presented in the theoretical framework, where one maintains that globalisation and liberalisation strategies have rationalised the airline into a more efficient operation that enhances long-term sustainability and the alternative perspective argues that globalisation and liberalisation have resulted in excessive air traffic growth and wasteful competition, thereby aggravating negative social and environmental externalities incompatible with long-term sustainability. These two are not incompatible with each other. Where airlines like KLM used to be nation-flag-carriers, they are now private companies. These three processes have impact on what lobby strategy to follow. The first line of thought seems to be welcomed by IATA, which says that the European aviation sector is a major driver of economic growth for the European Union. Because of economic globalisation and an increase in travel demand, air traffic is expected to increase by a two-fold within twenty years. IATA believes that this enormous growth is compatible with long-term sustainability if the Single European Sky initiative is implemented. This way the expected growth can be sustained in a safe and sustainable manner (IATA, 2013).
The modernization of the European ATM systems will deliver a 300kg fuel saving per flight, resulting in €6 billion of cost savings, and 12 million tonnes reduction in CO2 emissions when
28
air traffic is forecasted to grow to 20 million flights annually, with an average reduction of flight time of 10 minutes (IATA, 2013).
This quote illustrates the first perspective that globalisation and liberalisation rationalises the European air space into a more efficient operation that enhances long-term sustainability. According to Button the move to the Single European Market in 1992 represents a broader trend towards market liberalisation of air transport infrastructure (Button, 2008).
“Additional capacity, more efficient routes, fewer delays, less cancelled flights, and lower fuel burn will considerably increase the efficiency and economy of air transport while reducing costs and generating €419 billion additional GDP for the European economy and 320,000 jobs”
(IATA, 2013).
Liberalisation in this market seems to be blocked by the ATC strikes, who strive for their own rights and protection of national markets. And while IATA seems to illustrates a genuine two-folded interest: cost-saving and environmental impact reduction – this is expected to not be compatible with the environmental NGOs position. The government cannot solve the problems on its own due to the complexity of the issues and the industry cannot be expected to give neutral information, therefore the third actor – the environmental NGO – is needed in order to have a balanced approach to sustainable aviation.
According to Kusse (Interview 4) globalisation has profoundly changed lobby strategies. Globalisation gives more power to multinationals, since they can ‘play the system’, but on the other hand limits the liberalisation of the market, since more actors are involved. There are three major airline alliances: Star Alliance, One World and SkyTeam. KLM is member of the latter. These three could be perceived as being multinationals with a lot of power. New stakeholders arise, which limits the problem-solving capacity of the government. The government used to be a facilitator of interests, but this is not suitable anymore. The influence of media and other groups urges the government to take its responsibility. For aviation globalisation has had enormous impact on the growth and the influence of the sector. People fly more and more (Interview 1). Because of these processes of globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation the sector has been blurred and therefore the related responsibilities as well. One example that proves this is the use of foreign crew from countries where labour standards are lower than in the EU (CAPA, 2016).
29 According to Nobel (Interview 2) this blurring of sectors creates the need of strategic alliances or partnerships.
In 2008 the aviation industry agreed to a set of sector-specific climate change targets. While it is delivering on its first target – to improve fleet fuel efficiency by 1.5% per year until 2020 – it needs to take action to ensure that aviation will stabilise its net CO2 emissions while continuing to grow. By 2050 the sector intends to reduce its net CO2 footprint to 50% below what it was in 2005. SES is supposed to deliver a 10% reduction in environmental impact and therefore is considered to be one of the key drivers of a sustainable development of the air transport in Europe. IATA is calling for a great level of collaboration in order to reach the SES goals. The European airspace will need to be operated collaboratively as a network if the safety, environment, capacity and cost-effectiveness goals are to be achieved (IATA, 2013). This collaboration could take the form of a possible strategic lobby alliance between business and NGOs. From the literature review we saw that business and NGOs are disappointed in cooperation with the government. The aviation industry has numerous times stressed the importance of the implementation of SES, so it can be assumed that they are disappointed with the government. KLM is disappointed with the Dutch government and their action-plan for aviation (KLM, 2016). The government is accused of being too much involved in slow, bureaucratic negation processes, which lead to the postponements of measures, the setting of vague compromises and a lack of implementation (Arts, 2002). The postponement of measures and the lack of implementation are evident in the Single European Sky initiative. Intersectoral partnerships with a sustainable development aim can be interpreted as a new configuration (Van Huijstee, 2010). According to KLM you always need coalitions, at every level. It is better to build coalitions outside of our own beaten track with other industry associations, but also with NGOs (Interview 6). Kroessen adds to this that environmental issues cannot be solved by single governments, therefore the problem-solving capacity of the government is limited. Other coalitions are needed (Interview 5). Peeters doubt whether coalitions between sectors are the best strategy. With the car industry you see coalitions, but when you co-manufacture cars as environmental NGO, it is difficult to stop the construction of more roads. Nobel adds to this that
30 this is an example where the industry has lied to the government (Volkswagen Scandal6), which harms trust: one of the pre-conditions to partnerships. In the next chapter we will analyse whether distrust stands in the way of strategic lobby alliances.
Access and influence to the European institutions
”If you are an EU aviation sector stakeholder association enrolled in the EU Transparency Register and interested in attending regular meetings for debriefing and discussion on EU external aviation policy issues, please contact us at MOVE-E1-SECRETARIAT@ec.europa.eu and we will keep you informed about these meetings”.
The EU institutional setting may shape the strategy of KLM and NGOs. This quote of the Commission implies that all stakeholders hold even access to the European institutions on the Single European Sky initiative. The only requirement is that you are registered in the EU Transparency Register, but this is open for every non-state actor too. If both KLM and environmental NGOs have even access, there is no incentive to join forces. However, if one of the two has better access, this could be an incentive for the other to form a strategic alliance. Dutch government official Michael Lunter elaborated in the interview that they do have meetings where all stakeholders are invited, but sometimes they invite them individually so they can contribute their own point of views (Interview 8). There is no track-record in the Netherlands available about the number of meetings, but because for the environmental NGOs aviation is a lesser priority at the moment, it is expected that KLM has had more individual meetings. Therefore, there are probably few lobbyists involved on this issue, which classifies the issue in the first lobby system of Broscheid. There are few lobbyists, but the lobby costs are high: most respondents agreed that they had good access; they did perceive that KLM has better or higher access at the institutions. The elite pluralism system states that businesses have higher level of access to the European institutions, but what is important is as explained by Sanchez (2014) firms indeed have greater access to the European institutions than NGOs, but they do not invariably have more influence on the policy making process. There is a difference between having access and having influence. If KLM (as a business) has privileged access it would be interesting for NGOs to partner with KLM so that they would attain better access. For KLM
6
