The Why of EU Lobbyism
Qualitative Exploration Into the Legitimacy of Brussels Based Interest Groups
Lars Svensmark
Student number 12367710Master’s Thesis
Graduate School of Communication University of Amsterdam
Erasmus Mundus Master’s in Journalism, Media and Globalisation
Supervised by Rachid Azrout
7413 words
Abstract
The EU is a powerful economic and political power on the world stage but struggles internally with a longstanding debate about the democratic legitimacy of the pan-European
cooperation. An element in the critique is the presence of interest groups and the power they hold in the EU lawmaking. This study examines how the respective corporations and
organisations perceive their own legitimacy, as well as how EU lawmakers from the European Parliament and European Commission see it. Findings suggest that the interest groups add valuable expert knowledge and experience to the law-making process, known as “throughput legitimacy”. This is appreciated by both the Parliament and Commission. NGOs state that corporate interest groups hold more power than they should, partly due to the lack of transparency and money involved to increase influence over the output. Corporate interest groups however find that NGOs sometimes escalate conflicts rather than finding solutions, thus disrupting the throughput. Through qualitative interviews this study suggest that NGOs and corporate interest groups have different focus when it comes to legitimacy, which could partly explain why they both claim the other as more powerful.
Introduction
In the European Union, legislative power is held centrally in many different areas. This means that the 28 member states have to adopt laws that are agreed upon between The European Commission, The European Parliament and The European Council
(Richardson & Mazey, 2015). They affect the daily lives of more than 500 million EU citizens and millions of businesses operating on and beyond the old continent.
Many interests are at stake, and the stakes are high, which is why stakeholders of every kind wish to have a presence in Brussels. A stroll between Place de Luxembourg in front of The European Parliament towards the Schuman roundabout gathering The European
evident (“Google Maps,” 2019), revealing permanent representations of member states, missions and embassies from non-EU countries, Regional offices, NGOs, trade unions, labor unions, religious movements, civil society organisations and of course industry in all shapes and sizes clustered together in the many office buildings in and around The EU Quarter.
Interest groups, diplomats, advocates and lobbyists are there to observe, understand, report on and ultimately influence the policies of the EU. This heavy presence has however often been put under a lot of scrutiny, being one of the main arguments against the
legitimacy of the EU (Beetz, 2015). Out of all interest groups, corporations invest by far the most money in interest advocacy1, which might in return give them proportionally more
influence than they should be entitled to.
When there is an overwhelming lack of faith in an imagined community, be it a municipality, a state or the EU, it will find it difficult to keep itself together (Anderson, 1983). Regardless of the different opinions on the potential dissolving of the EU, there is no doubt that it would have wide-reaching consequences politically and economically, far more complex than those brought by the prospect of Brexit.
Considering this potential risk, it is worth investigating how lobbyists and the lobbied politicians and officials justify their cooperation. This will also give a foundation for the
academic examination of the impact of interest groups over lawmakers. The current research on the influence of interest groups does give any concise answers to the effect of lobbying, partly because more aspects of their work needs to be examined. Therefore, this paper sheds light on the question: How is the legitimacy of interest groups in the EU
lawmaking process perceived by Brussels-based interest advocates and EU
lawmakers? In developing an answer, the theoretical framework with the central concepts
will be presented first, followed by the methodology and findings of the study.
Theoretical framework
The two central actors of this study are the EU lawmakers and interest advocates (in this case interchangeable with lobbyists and interest groups). The main concept is of course legitimacy in the context of transparency and public interest, which will be explored at length, followed by an examination of several expectations for the study.
Interest groups
Lobbyism is surrounded by a great deal of mystery, and the reputation of lobbyists is often not a positive one. “Shady” methods are associated with the art of lobbyism, e.g. in Schriftgiesse's (1951) book “The lobbyists”, where he describes several cases of bribes, extortion and misleading information given by lobbyists in Washington DC. Many academics have tried to establish what level of influence lobbyists actually hold in relation to the EU, but it has proved hard to measure, as influence is a rather illusive term. In the words of Leech (2010, p. 2): “When evidence is presented, it is most often anecdotal rather than systematic. And yet no one believes that interests without lobbyists are better off than those that have them.”
To overcome this, looking into what lobbyists actually do in order to be influential can be a different way of understanding interest advocacy. Lobbyists are used as an additional advisory body in Brussels. Chalmers (2013) argue that the EU institutions are heavily understaffed, any “free” expert knowledge is much appreciated – meaning one can get access to the lawmakers if they can offer reliable information.
When McGrath (2006) interviewed 60 lobbyists from Washington, Brussels and London, he found that honesty, credibility and being a woman are some of the best traits for an effective lobbyist – things that, in light of the work of Schriftgiesse (1951), gives a different perspective on the features of an interest advocate. Defining what a lobbyist is can be rather tricky. In all American states there are different definitions for what a lobbyist is, often
focused on the level of financial compensation one can receive before being regarded a lobbyist (NCSL, 2019). This is done to exempt individuals acting on personal or grassroot incentive from having to comply with the bureaucracy regulations put in place towards professional law influencers.
A simple definition of an interest groups, interest advocates or lobbyists can be: “Anyone who tries to influence lawmakers” (Leech, 2010). The issue is that this would cover everyone from a law firm operating in the heart of Brussels to a citizen in Portugal who e-mails their MEP. Putting these two in the same category can seem rather obscure, but in the process of finding the balance, as it is with most legal definitions, loopholes will inevitably include or exclude groups or people.
"Lobbyist” is a very well-known and broad-reaching term, however the negative connotations make some people reluctant to use it, especially when describing themselves. To maximize neutrality, “interest group” is a preferred term for this paper, though both will be used interchangeably. While the normative discussion on the appropriate term is not the focus of this paper, it was worth considering, and was considered in the communication with interviewees.
EU lawmakers
EU lawmaking has three main actors: The European Parliament (EP), The European Commission (EC) and The European Councils. 2 Due to the nature of the Councils, the
impact of interest groups on this institution is difficult to analyze. As its members are nationally elected politicians from the EU member states’ governments, the main pressure from interest groups is unlikely to be coming mainly from the Brussels-based ones, perhaps except for the Belgian members. The European Commission and The European Parliament
2 The latter can be considered two institutions, see “The European Council and the Council of
on the other hand conduct most of their duties from Brussels, although MEPs often travel to Strasbourg in order to vote. The EP is significantly heterogenous since, as in any parliament, MEPs are elected to represent the people of their region, and therefore will have different political standpoints (Kreppel, 2003). The Parliament has a complex mixture of groups (similar to national parties), including Eurosceptics such as Europe for Freedom and Direct Democracy that hosts The Brexit Party, formerly known as UKIP. Most groups are however EU-positive, such as S&D and EPP. They are also mainly supportive of interest groups, emphasizing their added value to the process of lawmaking. However, there seems to be a difference in which lobbyists are welcomed by which politicians, with left-leaning members more positive towards non-commercial interest groups, and right leaning members more positive towards commercial interest groups. (Marshall, 2015)
The EC is on the other hand quite uniform. Only a handful of people are allowed to speak on its behalf, and there are strict limitations on what they are allowed to say (Kassim, Connolly, Dehousse, Rozenberg, & Bendjaballah, 2017). It is normally perceived as the most powerful of the institutions, as it has the right to initiative, meaning that it drafts legislation (Greenwood & Halpin, 2007).
Varela (2009) finds that some lobbyists use a tight relationship with MEPs to get an indirect channel to influence the Commission, and as the European Parliament has often been considered the weakest EU institution this could be the most useful way for interest groups to work with the EP. However, in the 10 years since Varela’s study, the European Parliament has gained more power, partly because national parliaments in the EU have demanded a more significant role for their pan-European equivalent (Haroche, 2018). This has led to processes such as Spitzenkandidaten, where the European Parliament is insisting on deciding the head of the European Commission, to much regret for the European
Council.3
The different lobbyists can have different levels of access depending on the institution and what they can offer. The EC is looking for technical advice, same is true for the EP, but the interest groups must also provide a line of argument consistent with the MEP. For the Councils it is very much a question of national preferences. (Bouwen, 2002; Coen & Katsaitis, 2013).
Legitimacy
There is an ongoing discussion centered around whether or not the EU has a democratic deficit (Beetz, 2015), that is partially caused by a lack of perceived legitimacy of European institutions. Lobbyist are an important element in this criticism, as they might disproportionally work towards goals that are not in the public interest. (Kohler-Koch, 2010; Kröger, 2013; Thiel, 2014)
Legitimacy is normally described in three stages: source (“input”), process
(“throughput”) and outcome (“output”) legitimacy (Shany, 2014). It is important to understand that legitimacy in all three stages is always there in almost any process imaginable, even though one might not actively consider this very often. Legitimization is a product of an individual or collective and conscious or sub-conscious evaluation of the actor(s) of a process on (1) why they take part in the process (input), (2) how they act in the process (throughput) and (3) what comes out of the process (output). At the same time, part of the output for one process might simultaneously be the input or throughput for another process, and these can be intertwined in a way that makes it difficult to separate one from the other.
Previous research focusing on the EU has concluded that the lack of legitimacy is not only an internal political problem, but can make it hard for the EU to show authority outside its borders, weakening the potential impact of a unified European voice (Henisz & Zelner, 2005; Kleine, 2018; Stoddard, 2015). One of the challenges in creating legitimacy is that citizens already feel a strong attachment to their state (Bolleyer & Reh, 2012) and it has
proven very difficult to create a common idea of being a European citizen. This is partially because most media has a national focus, and those that have a European perspective are quite narrow (Welge, 2015).
When the term legitimacy is used it is often not clear which exact process or form of legitimacy it refers to. But if we look at the lawmaking process of the EU, the EP holds the clearest input legitimacy, with MEPs directly elected by citizens to represent them at the EU-level (Haroche, 2018). For the Council the representatives are also directly elected for the national parliaments, but research indicates that EU only plays a marginal role in national elections, (Senninger & Wagner, 2015) meaning that voters likely choose national politicians based on personal preference, without taking into consideration the EU context. The EC is chosen and approved by the two other institutions, so one could argue that they hold a proxy input legitimacy. However, the EC is often criticized for a lack of input legitimacy because, while it has the powerful role of being agenda-setter, it does not have any directly
democratically-elected members (Bouwen, 2002).
Public interest
The term public interest is often mentioned as something worth striving for, but there is an ongoing discussion of what the public interest in fact is. The main line of discussion shows public interest defined as either what is important to the public (even if it doesn’t know or acknowledge its importance), or as what the public shows interest in, or as simply
undefinable, because the “public” is just as difficult to define. Within this abstract group there would often be a significant diversity of opinion and interest.
Public interest is often mentioned directly or implicitly as opposed to private, self or common interest4. With that in mind it seems peculiar that framing the priorities of interest
groups as being in the public interest is a widely used method for them to make their case for holding a stronger legitimacy (Ihlen et al., 2018).
When thinking of public interest in relation to legitimacy of the EU lawmaking process, you could argue that it is found in the output legitimacy, as this is the part that will influence the public. While it is true that the public broadly would be most concerned with output, in this process it is used to claim legitimacy meaning that it should rather be considered input legitimacy.
Transparency
Lobbyism and transparency are two discussions that go hand in hand. In the case of EU lawmaking, this relates to throughput legitimacy, as it is an ongoing process (Berthier, 2016). Here it is important to distinguish between two layers, from the EU lawmakers perspective: internal and external transparency. Internal transparency is one’s own
knowledge of who they are talking to and who they represent. The external transparency is the release of public information on who the lawmaker is meeting with – potentially including details about topics discussed or minutes. In this context it is worth mentioning that the EU has a Transparency Register that is mandatory in the Commission5, voluntary in the
Parliament and not adopted by the Council.
Expectations
In this study it is the intention to keep an open approach to what the data will show, as there are no current studies looking specifically at the perceived legitimacy of interest advocates by themselves and by EU lawmakers. However, setting some expectations can
5 See Greenwood & Halpin (2007) for discussion of some of the challenges with this and
serve the same purpose as a hypothesis, giving the study a clearer direction. Consequently, unlike hypotheses, the expectations can neither be confirmed nor rejected.
E1: Left-leaning politicians assign more input legitimacy to NGOs, while right-leaning ones
see corporate lobbyists as having more input legitimacy.
Interest groups often target the politicians that they find to be most aligned with their own position, as they tend to be more tolerant of their arguments (Marshall, 2015). Therefore it will be interesting to examine whether the politicians also find the same groups to hold more input legitimacy.
E2: Corporate interest groups will focus mainly on the knowledge they add to the throughput.
EU lobbying is an exchange of both factual and ideological, meaning arguments based on political stands, information (Chalmers, 2013). Corporate interests supporting themselves with ideological information can often be rejected as purely having the purpose of maximizing self-profit. Therefore, factual and concrete knowledge could likely be their main focus, in order to increase credibility.
E3: Corporate interest groups will see NGOs as unconstructive in the throughput.
The density of different types of interest groups differs a lot from topic to topic, and the groups offer different things depending on their specific area and type (Coen & Katsaitis, 2013). As in E2, the corporate interest groups find it hard to offer ideological arguments and will therefore seek the discredit this type of information, which will often be provided by NGOs.
E4: NGOs will claim public interest as their input legitimacy
Framing one’s interest as public interest is a widely used method, including amongst
business lobbyists (Ihlen et al., 2018). However, NGOs will often have built their organization on some idea of public interest, and therefore they are likely to claim this as their input legitimacy.
E5: NGOs will see corporate interest groups as having too much influence on the output.
Corporate interest groups spend far more on lobbying than civil society and NGOs (“Integritywatch.eu,” 2019), and even though the EU is trying to fund grassroot initiatives (Kohler-Koch, 2010) it is still questioned whether there is fair representation (Thiel, 2014). This skewed representation is said to give corporate interest groups a disproportional influence on the output of the EU lawmaking.
Methods
To answer this question, a qualitative approach is most appropriate. The previous literature on this topic is very limited, making exploratory research most fit to look for
potential patterns. Talking directly with both interest groups and lawmakers is the best means to understand at least some of the positions that can be held, while uncovering aspects that are perhaps not obvious to consider based on existing literature.
This section will first go through the characteristics of the sample of interviewees, the interview guides and lastly the method for analysis before presenting the findings.
Research units
In acknowledgement of the very different character of interest advocates, the focus has been on two distinct groups, namely corporate and non-governmental. The former have a very clear commercial interest; corporations are most likely to work on what can give them most profit. On the other side, NGOs do often have a more or less clear or realistically achievable goal to support a certain community or property, but not one where they strive for financial gain. Some will argue, that there is an indirect goal of having their work rewarded with donations or members, though NGOs would argue that these are just the mean and not the goal.
NGOs, corporate interest advocates and EU lawmakers were the desired research units for face-to-face interviews. In this case the scope of interest groups is limited to those registered in the Transparency Register under “Companies & groups” and
“Non-governmental organisations” and with an office in Brussels (“Transparency Register,” 2019).
Their contact details were gathered through the register. First an email was sent, later they were contacted by phone.
In the European Commission all spokespersons were contacted by email. For the European Parliament a scrapper was coded to gather information on the 751 MEPs from the EP website. 748 emails were gathered, and they all received an email addressing them by name. The Councils were excluded from the analysis, as a qualitative analysis of them would be overly complicated.
As all respondents are anonymous, some of the classifications can seem rather vague, as they could otherwise be used to identify companies, NGOs or persons. The interviewees were as follows:
European Commission: 1
It was only possible to ensure a single interview from the European Commission. However it should be mentioned, that only relatively few people are allowed to speak on behalf of the Commission, and they have clear guidelines for what they can say, therefore a single interview should be enough to talk about the predominant attitude in the institution. (Greenwood & Halpin, 2007)
European Parliament: 18
The European Parliament does not differ from most other parliaments in the sense that it is put together to reflect the citizens it represents, and it will therefore have a broad
set of political stands. On top of that, the relatively broad coalitions that are needed to make a group in the European Parliament means that even within groups, opinions can differ significantly. Politicians in national parliaments will often have a party loyalty and
constituency loyalty to weigh out between, whereas an MEP often has both these and the loyalty to their EP group to consider (Marshall, 2015). This means that it can often be quite a puzzle to gather a majority in the EP especially if a topic draws a lot of attention. For this reason, a broad sample was needed from the 751 members (MEPs) to reflect this. A total of 18 interviews were conducted. From the commission in the Parliament, meaning the coalition that holds a majority, there were 5 interviewees from EPP (centre-right), 4 from ALDE (liberal–centrist) and 2 from S&D (centre-left). From the opposition there were 2 interviewees from the Greens (progressive), 3 from GUE-NGL (left), one from EFDD
(Eurosceptic), and one Non-Attached member who was elected to the European Parliament representing a far-right party.
The third largest group in the parliament, ECR (centre-right to right-wing and Eurosceptic) unfortunately had no members who showed interest in participating. The group of interviewees consisted of 6 MEPs, 12 assistants (in two cases two assistants to the same MEP were interviewed together) and two party group employees (Political leaning take from The European Parliament website (2019)).
Corporate: 5
The representatives from the companies interviewed covered a broad range of industries such as logistics, energy and telecom. Some were the largest in their field or had operations both within and outside Europe. They all had in common that they operate in multiple EU countries.
NGOs: 4
The NGOs represented were both working directly and indirectly on lobbyism. One is concerned with public health and one represents people with a specific recreational interest.
Interviews
Going back to the core focus of the study – legitimacy – four semi-structured interview guides were made, where the two for the interest groups (corporate and NGO) were very similar to each other, as were those for the lawmakers (from EP and EC). It was decided to take an approach to the interviews where the three stages of legitimacy were not explicitly introduced to the interviewees, but they would rather be questioned indirectly about legitimacy. This was done for two reasons. First of all, introducing an academic definition can be very time-consuming, which is not ideal with a group of time constrained interviewees and it would not be possible to measure whether that the interviewees actually understand the concepts to a satisfying degree. Secondly, introducing a concept might shift the focus of the interviewee, and they might deduct, even unconsciously, that it would be more beneficial to claim one part of legitimacy than another, even if it doesn’t correspond to reality. Therefore, asking rather indirectly allowed the interviewee to talk about the topic in a natural way, producing more genuine answers. To avoid very abstract answers, follow-up questions were asked and to those struggling with their answers. The interview guides can be found in appendix 1 with explanations and respective goals for each question.
The first 27 interviews were conducted face-to-face in Brussels between the 13th of
March 2019 to and including the 22nd of March 2019. The last interview was conducted over
the phone with the representative of the European Commission on the 3rd of April 2019.
This means that the sample is consisting of MEPs from the 8th European Parliament in
Grounded theory
A total of 14 hours of interviews were conducted and then transcribed for analysis. Using the principles of grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006) 4 random interviews (2 MEP, 1 NGO, 1 corporate) were first processed in open coding as a pre-test, then the codebook was revised in a second round with four other interviews, where one MEP interview was
substituted with the Commission interview. After the second revision the codes were applied to all interviews.
The codes were categorized according to their relevance for the different kinds of legitimacy. This way, quotes related to the same form of legitimacy could be analysed altogether within the different groups being looked at. The qualitative data analysis and research software Atlas.ti was used for the coding.
The legitimacy process focused on in the analysis is the EU lawmaking. This means that when input, throughput and output will be mentioned, it will be with regards to EU lawmaking, and not other potential processes related to it. As this process is obviously most closely related to the EU lawmakers, the link for the interest groups to the process becomes rather abstract. The input needs to be self-defined and the contribution on the throughput needs to go through the lawmaker, making it an open question how big their influence is on the output, if even any. This mean that if the interest group has a clear influence on the output, this is the result of an effective work in the throughput.
The aggregated grouping of answers made it possible to see some patterns as well as the chance to highlight relevant arguments.
Findings
The findings that go across lawmakers and interest groups will be presented first and afterwards the expectations of the study will be examined. In appendix 2 a list of supporting
quotes can be found6. To keep the appendices as short as possible not all supporting quotes
were added.
One attitude was shared between all interviewees, who are ranging from this non-attached MEP, EU critical parties, established political groups, the European Commission, companies and NGOs. All of them said, that whoever has an interest at stake in EU lawmaking also has a right to defend that interest. Consequently, there is a widely recognised input legitimacy, as long as you have an interest (Q1).
“No, I don't have any problem, because we are discussing all of these issues regardless of if I agree or not, there is no problem to discuss all issues. I try to understand and regardless of the point of them, I can see everyone” said a Non-attached MEP, asked if there is anyone he will not talk to.
A few exceptions were mentioned: the Tobacco industry, who is banned from lobbying anything related to public health, organizations and diplomats who do not have “European values” and an interviewee from the EP mentioned that he would probably need some guidance if “Waffen SS Old Boys Association” asked for a meeting (Q2). There were also some nuances and practical limitations that will be discussed later.
Throughput legitimacy is without a doubt the most emphasized part by the lawmakers and some of the interest groups as well. This is where the interest groups can actively put their knowledge at work. The members of the EP and EC value receiving a wide set of different opinions, expert inputs and experiences when taking a decision. This is also where the interest groups see their role – in qualifying the knowledge of the lawmakers, while of course implicitly hoping that this will affect the output in a favourable way for their interest (Q3).
Political alignment
As previously mentioned, there is a strong appetite in the Parliament for meetings and conversations with everyone who represents an interest, even those who are not politically aligned with the respective MEP (Q4). Yet although there are a few exceptions to this wide acceptance of interest groups, there are also some more practical circumstances, that differ from MEP to MEP.
Firstly, it is important to remember that the EP deals with a wide range of topics. Not everyone works on all topics, and each will be specialised in specific areas which in turn will be more or less interesting for lobbyists, as put by a member of EPP: “And I think these two, to put it bluntly, these two committees are not that much lobbied as other more influential committees”
This is to say that the amount and kind of lobbying that MEPs are exposed to differ significantly. Working on human rights issues will mainly be of interest to e.g. NGOs and diplomats, whereas working on labour laws will draw the attention of especially companies and labour unions. The presence of interest groups is not simply an even pressure but differs between MEPs and topics (Q5).
This might also partly explain why the attitudes of the MEPs that were interviewed were not necessarily in accordance to what might be assumed from their group affiliation. One member of the progressive Green group stated that NGOs can often have a slanted approach, while an interviewee from the liberal-centrist ALDE said they would tend to trust NGOs more than corporate interest groups (Q6). This research cannot reveal whether these are simply outliers in the political groups, or the attitudes could correlate with membership in committees or the country in which they were elected, yet it does put E1 into question. It would take a more granular approach in order to confirm whether or not there’s an overall pattern. These findings do not support that MEPs necessarily assign more input legitimacy to specific types of interest groups.
Besides the general openness to talk with anyone, the MEPs have different groups that they prefer working with. These can either be their national interest groups, groups they have a long-term corporation with or simply those they feel can provide information they didn’t have before (Q7). This is a form of extended input legitimacy, but also touches upon the throughput legitimacy, which as mentioned is by far the most emphasized part by the interviewees. For the interest groups to be allowed to feed into the throughput, they first of all need to have at least an assumed input legitimacy. By offering a good throughput the interest groups can strengthen their input as well, making the MEP more inclined to listen another time (Q8).
Even when the input of an interest group is accepted, there can be other obstacles to being a part of the throughput. The interviews show that many MEPs simply don’t have enough time to meet with all those who request a meeting. Therefore, even with an otherwise valid input, interest groups might not get a meeting if the MEP can already anticipate the result of the meeting. The MEP will only agree if the meeting adds unique value – this
includes both expert advice, practical experience or in some cases viewpoints that they were not familiar with (Q9).
MEPs appreciate interest groups that provide feasible suggestions (Q10). NGOs can be very idealistic and too far away from the achievable, whereas companies are “easier” to please, as their interests are often clear and stable. Some enjoy working with the latter as they can seem more professional, better prepared, more punctual (Q11). This experienced difference is seen by some as the symptom of a skewed representation of interests (Q12).
Transparency is also a topic that is continuously brought up as essential for the throughput process. It is mentioned in two ways, both between the MEP and the interest group and between the MEP and the EU citizens. In the first of these categories, MEPs need to know who they are talking to, so they can understand their background and why they have an interest in the topic. This is of course also a part of the input legitimacy of the interest
groups, as it is a condition for meeting. But the MEPs tend to focus very much on this aspect in their evaluation of the interest groups’ arguments, meaning that this is reflected across into the throughput legitimacy (Q13). The second part of transparency is also the more widely discussed: the public access to information about interactions between policymakers and lobbyists. This is mainly done through submitting meetings to the Transparency Register and by mentioning them on websites or social media. This is important for the throughput
legitimacy, as it help voters evaluating the process of lawmaking. However, it is not mandatory for MEPs to report to the Transparency Register, only recommended (Q14).
Many said they already report to the Transparency Register and would like to see it made mandatory (Q15), while some did not see a point in making in mandatory, as most MEPs already report their activities (Q16). One even said he does declare to the
Transparency Register but would rather not, because it takes time away from lawmaking, which he deems as more important (Q17). In general, the MEPs underline that responsibility for good practice in the throughput and the output is their responsibility, that they should listen to everyone, but decide by themselves and in accordance with their political views (Q18).
The EC does not – at least officially – have a political leaning and will in theory meet with everyone, but they prefer “aggregated” interest groups. With a high number of interest groups requesting meetings, it means that umbrella organisations representing similar interest at once will get priority, so the more they represent, the higher the input legitimacy (Q19). For the EC it is mandatory to record all meetings in the Transparency Register, and therefore being registered is both necessary to have a sufficient input legitimacy and at the same time strengthening the throughput legitimacy in the process.
“The only way to make good policies is to talk to all these interest representatives and to make sure that all interests are heard,” said an EC official. Like the EP, the EC highlights
that the contribution of the interest groups is to provide expert knowledge, practical experience and opinions that the EC needs to qualify its work as much as possible (Q20).
E1 is not supported by these results, although at the same time it cannot be
confirmed as untrue. In the sample there is no definite indication that left-leaning politicians give more input legitimacy to NGOs and that right-leaning assign more to corporate lobbyists.
Corporate contribution
The interviewed companies mentioned how present they are in EU and non-EU countries, their number of employees and their contribution to taxes, which could very well be seen as an input legitimacy (Q21). However, when asked if they should be considered as part of the EU lawmaking because of these factors, they denied it and underlined that they should be involved for the quality of their arguments. This suggests that their input legitimacy is something that should come from their throughput (Q22).
“We are trying to get involved in the research and development programs from the Commission. And then as a whole, if I try to summarize a bit it is also to be visible,” said a company representative.
One way of making especially the EC give priority to a certain company and ask for advice is by making the company noticed in “unexpected” areas. This can be done by setting ambitious goals regarding climate and waste, or offering expert knowledge about
non-European countries where the company is also operating (Q23). This is supportive for E2, showing that the corporate interest groups interviewed focused mainly on the knowledge they add to the throughput of the EU lawmaking process.
Legitimacy of NGOs
The companies emphasise that they are only one voice that gives a piece to the throughput puzzle and that it is up to the lawmakers to construct the full picture based on
their aggregated knowledge and political judgement (Q24). At the same time, the corporate lobbyists use the throughput process to bring knowledge back to their companies. If the lawmakers are not leaning towards the standpoint the company presents, the latter can adjust business in accordance to the way the political winds are blowing (Q25).
When asked about other interest groups, most will focus on other companies, both those they work with in associations and those who have opposing views. Depending on the topic, they will work in alliances to have a stronger voice or by themselves when it relates to issues they’re specifically engaged with (Q26). When asked about NGOs, these are
mentioned as valuable for bringing in a different perspective, so the input legitimacy seen by the companies is directed at what they add to the throughput (Q27). NGOs are also seen as quite influential and efficient in getting their agenda through to the output of lawmaking (Q28). That there is a difference in opinions between NGOs and companies goes without saying. But depending on the sector, the dispute differs from exchanging their views when meeting, all the way to NGOs never accepting an invitation to an event held by certain companies (Q29). It is not completely true that corporate interest groups see NGOs as unconstructive in the throughput, as E3 states. It seems to depend very much on the topic, how the corporate interest groups see the NGOs.
Many NGOs work for what they see as public interest, and this is where they get their input legitimacy. Public interest was defined as issues that were surveyed as important to the public, topics members of NGOs saw as important and also where they had a general sense of lacked representativeness (Q30). This supports E4, because the interviewed NGOs find their input legitimacy by claiming that they work for public interest. Their general approach does not differ much from the corporate interest groups, as they will set up meetings with lawmakers as a way of influencing the throughput (Q31). But at the same time campaigning and activism is an additional tool they use if they cannot get sufficient attention for a cause (Q32).
“But they also need to smoothen the implementation and not to make stupid mistakes as they have done.” – NGO representative
The NGOs were mainly focused on their output, frequently stating their objective, also when asked specifically about their approach in the throughput. As mentioned in the
theoretical section, the public interest will often be seen as reflected in the output, and in that aspect it makes sense that if one wishes to claim public interest as their input legitimacy, they need to deliver or criticize an output that they can then attempt to change (Q33).
Imbalance of power
NGOs do see companies as having an interest that they can defend, an input legitimacy (Q34). However, they raise concerns about the amount of money spent by the corporate interest groups, as it is significantly more than seen anywhere else on the lobbying scene. At the same time, the NGOs do not think corporate interest groups are transparent enough when it comes to how they spend their money and what their lobbyists are doing. This makes it difficult for the voter to assess the throughput legitimacy of the lawmaking process. These worries also raise a concern of a skewed balance of influence proportional or even greater than the gap in resources spent by corporate interest groups and NGOs – in other words that companies will influence the output significantly (Q35). This means that E5 proved to be highly supported. NGOs do see corporate interest groups as having a great influence on the output of EU lawmaking, partly due to poor transparency, partly due to their higher number of economic and human resources spent on lobbying.
Discussion
EU lawmakers declare themselves as willing to meet with almost anyone provided that they find the time, only excluding those who lack elusive things “European values”. Based on this study, it cannot be said for sure whether there are any biases in the ways EU
lawmakers treat interest groups, as lawmakers self-reported their behaviour, bringing limitations to the reliability of the data gathered. Whether or not they act on personal
preferences (Bolleyer & Reh, 2012), give preference to those best at claiming public interest (Ihlen et al., 2018) or manage to find a reasonable balance is not possible to say.
Part of the parliament seems to be aligned with NGOs saying that there needs to be more transparency, and that the distribution of resources is unfair. Another part of the EP is aligned with companies, saying that they are already transparent, and they can only make the best decisions with stakeholders there (Marshall, 2015). In some areas there might not even be a significant interest held by either business or NGOs (Bouwen, 2002). Deciding who has a legitimate interest that is not heard and how to make that heard is not easy. The EC is attempting to find this balance by funding specific civil society movements, raising the interesting situation that the EC is giving money that is used to lobby the EC and other EU institutions (Kohler-Koch, 2010). Like with input legitimacy it is impossible to say who is more dominant in throughput process (Berthier, 2016). However in the interviews conducted we can see that corporate interest groups tend to focus more on this form of legitimacy, which previous research has showed is a way of acquiring access (Chalmers, 2013).
There is a disagreement when it comes to who holds more influence over the actual output. NGOs say companies have most influence, companies see it the other way around. These allegations in the end can be very problematic for the EU institutions, who can have their judgment questioned (Kassim et al., 2017). The optimistic way of seeing it would be that when neither part thinks of themselves as very influential in the EU lawmaking it must be because there is a relatively even balance of influence. On the other hand, stating that their is in fact influence on EU lawmaking to a very high extent might not be a fruitful tactic - your boldness might not sit well with lawmakers, who must be independent (Berthier, 2016).
It could also be that their difference in focus on legitimacy is what is causing them to say that the other one has more influence. The activist and vocal approach often taken by
the NGOs in the throughput could make them seem like they have made themselves heard in the eyes of companies. On the other hand the output might be more stirred by the
corporate interests – but as there are many of these with often different interests, finding the compromise might not be recognised by any party as their “victory”, but will still be leaning more to a sort of aggregated corporate interest. This question of who influences lawmakers the best is still unanswered (Leech, 2010), but we can say that the corporate interest groups spend significantly more money and time meeting with lawmakers (“Integritywatch.eu,” 2019), though this cannot tell us who holds more output legitimacy.
Conclusion
This study has shown that the approach to legitimacy in lobbyism is different between NGOs and companies, even though they do share some of the same methods. The different views on who is most influential in EU lawmaking could be causing companies and NGOs to both assert that the other party is the more powerful in the process. Although it is not
possible to say who holds the most influence, understanding that corporate interest groups focus on throughput legitimacy and NGOs focus on output legitimacy can be a part of the key to making better sense of their conflicting views.
The power interest groups hold in the EU lawmaking process and essentially the power they then hold over EU citizens is difficult to pinpoint. NGOs in particular claim that they work for the public interest, meaning that their influence would be positive for the
European citizens - if we assume that they in fact work for the public interest and that there is such a thing. We can however not say that one holds more input legitimacy than the other, and the lawmakers are very careful in allowing a wide variety of interest groups to share their views. On one hand, the lawmakers find the knowledge from the interest groups essential to their work and give high regards to their added value in the throughput. At the same time, a
public perception of the interest groups as influencers on the output might threaten the EU all together, potentially having massive societal consequences.
It will be interesting to see whether the EU can convincingly make the case that interest groups have a positive effect on lawmaking, without having a disproportional power over the output. If the collective evaluation of the legitimacy of the EU lawmaking process tips convincingly towards the negative, we might see a situation where even more countries decide to follow the UK on their trail out of the European Union.
Further research
This purpose of this study is providing a steppingstone for academia to look deeper into the aspects explored here. First of all, looking at the European Councils and other kinds of interest groups than NGOs and the corporate sphere would add more nuance and help with the segmentation of opinions. An in-depth scrutiny of how well MEPs, NGOs and
corporate lobbyists comply with what they say would add an extra layer to this research. This would be challenging for a number of reasons, especially because it would require a high level of access to their daily work, which would be difficult in any case, but one could imagine that corporate interest groups would care to a high extent about the confidentiality of some aspects in their business.
A study similar to this with focus on different aspects and interpretations of transparency and public interest would also be very relevant. Both these terms are
mentioned extensively and underlined as important, but there appears to be a big difference in the practical interpretations of what they mean.
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Appendix 1
Interview guides
These were the interview guides followed during the interviews with the interest groups and lawmakers. All guides are meant to be as similar as possible to ensure the same basic premises to answer and thereby making the answers comparable. However there are some bigger differences between lawmaker and interest groups interviews, then between the internal interviews in the groups, as the lawmakers and interest groups come from two different sides of this topic.
The questions are presented underneath here, but there might have been slight differences in how they were asked from interview to interview. For example to recognize that I as in interviewer was listening, I would often acknowledge that they already touched upon the topic or rephrase what they said back to them, before asking the question. If the answers given were not satisfactory to the aim of the question. The questions themselves are
presented in plain text, an interviewer note in brackets, and in italic is a comment explaining the purpose of the question.
MEP
Briefing: First of all thank you for taking the time to take part in my research for my Master’s thesis. This interview will be audio recorded on two separate devices. The recording will only be used by myself to transcribe the interview, so it can be incorporated as a systematic part of my research. Your identity will only be known by me and my thesis supervisor, in the thesis the closest identifier will be your EP party group affiliation.
The topic of my thesis is interest groups legitimacy in the EU law-making process as seen by both EU lawmakers and interest groups. The goal of the study is to uncover systematic consistencies and inconsistencies between and within these two groups.
If you have any questions now or later, feel free to ask now. Otherwise I will ask you to give verbal consent that you have understood and agreed to participate.
The briefing was deliberately kept short because the interviewees are busy people, and it was preferably to spend this time on the actual interview instead of briefing them. At the same it was desirable to not perhaps introduce a concept to them in depth that they might misunderstand or adjust their answers to achieve the desirable answer. The interviewees were only asked for verbal consent as they are all in one way or the other already public figures or representatives of some it would be reasonable to expect them to aware of potential consequences of what they might say. Anonymity is standard procedure for academic interviews, several MEPs underlined however that they would not mind having their identity known in the research, but in order to keep consistency all respondents were kept anonymous.
Interview: Can you first of all give a brief description of your political stands and the topics you work the most on here in the EP? (Make sure there is a specific topic mentioned) This question mainly served the purpose of getting the interviewee into a flow of talking, but also to set their mind into a more abstract and broad context of what they do, as the interview in general has this focus.
Are there any interest groups that you work with on this/these topics? Why? Why not? Are there any you are specifically not working with? (If it’s broad, make it concrete, and vice versa)
This question aims at their input legitimacy, but also tries to explore a bit of the preferences that might be dominant. The word “work” set some interviewees off slightly, as they
interpreted it as meaning a close collaboration, in those cases the question was rephrased to use “talk” instead. The “negative” framing of the question helped establish those with lacking legitimacy.
What kind of cooperation do you have with interest groups? What kind of cooperation are you offered by these interest groups? (Meetings, seminars, reports etc) (Make sure to get both, what they’re offered and what they do)
In order to establish how the much access groups can get It was important to see of there was a distinction between the cooperation, as it is quite different to receive a position paper for an interest group and co-organize a conference with one. This also helps understand the throughput process.
Where would you draw the line between what is an acceptable form of cooperation with an interest group and what is not? Is it different between interest groups? (See if you can get as close to a concrete situation as possible)
Getting an idea of what is not acceptable also talks into the level access given by input legitimacy and what MEPs will accept in the throughput
Do you take different approaches to different kinds of interest groups? Like NGO’s,
corporate, thinktanks, religious? Why is that? (Make them compare NGO and Corporate of they do not bring it up themselves)
Again we are touching on both input and throughput legitimacy, and also just seeing what kind of interest groups they will bring up first is an indicator for this as well. After the “open” answer they would be asked to address NGOs and companies, as they are the focus of the study.
Some might say that special interests of groups and companies should not be allowed to influence a law-making process in a democratic system. What do you think of this? How can you justify their presence/why is their presence not justified? Again, does this differ between different groups?
This rather radical statement is aimed to push the interviewees a bit in order to justify the legitimacy of interest groups.
How do you overall see the presence of interest advocates in the EU law-making process? Is it good or bad (or something else)?
Again using contradictions to sharpen the arguments of the interviewees was the tactic, however the terms good and bad was disputed heavily in the two first interviews, meaning that this question was changed to ask for the advantages and disadvantages of interest
groups instead, still tapping into some of the same ideas of legitimacy without having to say that someone is good, and someone is bad.
Is there anything you would like to see changed in the current presence of interest groups? This question was meant to decide whether they say the legitimacy as good at the moment, and otherwise to speak up if anything should be changed.
Before I finish the interview, I would like to ask you, if you have anything you would like to add or that you feel you did not have the chance to address?
A standard last question for academic interviews, giving the interviewee a chance to mention anything they might find relevant.
Commission
First of all thank you for taking the time to take part in my research for my Master’s thesis. This interview will be audio recorded on two separate devices. The recording will only be used by myself to transcribe the interview, so it can be incorporated as a systematic part of my research. Your identity will only be known by me and my thesis supervisor, in the thesis the closest identifier will be that you’re working in the European Commission.
The topic of my thesis is interest groups legitimacy in the EU law-making process as seen by both EU lawmakers and interest groups. The goal of the study is to uncover systematic consistencies and inconsistencies between and within these two groups.
If you have any questions now or later, feel free to ask now. Otherwise I will ask you to give verbal consent that you have understood and agreed to participate.
Same as for MEPs, with adjustment in the part of what they’ll be identified as.
Interview: So I know that you work in DG (specific), but can you first of all give a brief description of what that involves?
Getting the interviewee into a flow while setting the tine as broad and abstract.
Are there any interest groups that you work with? Why? Why not? Are there any you are specifically not working with? (If it’s broad, make it concrete, and vice versa)
See MEP interview guide
What kind of cooperation do you have with interest groups? What kind of cooperation are you offered by these interest groups? (Meetings, seminars, reports etc) (Make sure to get both, what they’re offered and what they do)
See MEP interview guide
Where would you draw the line between what is an acceptable form of cooperation with an interest group and what is not? Is it different between interest groups? (See if you can get as close to a concrete situation as possible)
See MEP interview guide
Do you take different approaches to different kinds of interest groups? Like NGO’s,
corporate, thinktanks, religious? Why is that? (Make them compare NGO and Corporate of they do not bring it up themselves)
See MEP interview guide
Some might say that special interests of groups and companies should not be allowed to influence a law-making process in a democratic system. What do you think of this? See similar question in MEP interview guide
How can you justify their presence/why is their presence not justified? Again, does this differ between different groups?
Meant to follow up on the previous question, anticipating that with the mandatory Transparency Register the Commission will be quite reflected on this.
What are advantages and disadvantages of the way the system works today? The good/bad question from the MEP interview guide adjusted
Is there anything you would like to see changed in the current presence of interest groups? See MEP interview guide
Before I finish the interview, I would like to ask you, if you have anything you would like to add or that you feel you did not have the chance to address?
NGO
Same briefing, adjusted for their identifier
Interview: Can you start out by shortly describing what the interests of your group is, and why you are here in Brussels?
Getting them into talking while setting the tone as broad and abstract
Which approaches do you take to protect your interests? Meeting with MEP’s, Commission, reports, campaigns etc? Is there anything you think is not an appropriate way of protecting your interests?
Talking into how they affect the throughput.
Who do you mainly work with and why? MEP, Commission, other interest groups? Why is this/are these (an) important actor(s) to work with?
To give a deeper understanding of how they work in the throughput
Do you see your interest group as inherently different than other interest groups? Which? How? Are some groups more justified in being present here than others? (push the comparison, if they don’t do it)
Making them position themselves and also talking about how they see the legitimacy of other interest groups.
Some might say, that it’s the officials and the elected politicians who should take care of the law-making without having the pressure from interest groups. What do you think of this statement?
Like for MEP and Commission this radical statement is posed to make them more sharp on their basic justification for legitimacy.
Following the previous statement, what is the justification for your presence here? eg. What is your mandate for being here? What value do you add to the process? What positives do you give to the outcome?
This question works a follow-up to the previous to push them as much as possible to give justifications for their legitimacy.
Is there anything about the way interest groups can work in Brussels that you would like to see changed? Why?
This can uncover if they’re happy with the legitimacy of the process as it is, or if they see some problems in it.
Before I finish the interview, I would like to ask you, if you have anything you would like to add or that you feel you did not have the chance to address?
See same question for MEP.
Corporate
Appendix 2
Quotes from interviews
Be aware that some part of the quotes are partly censored or altered to protect the identity of the interviewees. All interferences with the original quote is indicated by brackets.
After each quote it will be indicated where the response came from, “Comm” for the European Commission, “Corp” for the corporate and “NGO” for the NGOs. The
parliamentarians are recognized by their group abbreviation. (EPP = European People's Party group ; SD = Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats ; ALDE = Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe group ; GUENGL = European United Left–Nordic Green Left ; Green = Greens–European Free Alliance ; EFDD = Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy ; NA = Non-Attached Members also known as Non-Inscrits)
Numbers are used after the abbreviation to separate respondents who belong to the same group. The numbers were distributed at random.
Q1 – everyone with an interest are legitimate
“So, so everybody has their place in the spectrum and it's my job to know who they are and where they're coming from.” – Greens1
“I think it's positive for the discussions positive for the for making up your mind on different topics. And they're the organisations of the companies working in their fields are the ones that have more experience more practical experience and and they are the ones that can talk to us with much knowledge at least more knowledge that we have here in the in the
Parliament sometimes. So I would I would say that if I would see that we do not close any doors whatsoever” – ALDE1
“We are from a liberal group... So we don't say we don't operate or you say that.. That we reject all interest groups you know.. That there is, there is sometimes value to their contribution but it's true that you need to be very careful and very critical as to what their agenda is and what they try to get out of you.” – ALDE2
“Yeah, well the good thing is, it's in between. We have the public interest is in the case always in between the NGOs and industries, because... Of course we all need a stable economy and we need to be able to live in the world. We need to be able to buy some things. So it's like, in a modern world it's like that. So we need to continue. But you know so on the other hand, on the other hand you also have environmental and the more... You know the various groupation that are now very important to people and supported by the NGO. So you've got both things and I would say it's in between them. So that's why I say it's great to have both things.” – ALDE3
“They are all interest groups who quite legitimately and properly are concerned about what happens in this place because what happens in this place can have an effect usually a very very significant effect on their members. So yes, there are literally thousands of interest groups all of whom in my view have a totally legitimate interest in the fact that .. that the laws and their prosperity are going to be massively affected by decisions taken here.” - EFDD1 “Yeah I find it reasonable and maybe necessary. Because they give you, I mean MEPs the opportunity to learn some things and be.. And they're in contact with these people who understand what their purpose is, their proposals. And of course it makes sense.” – NA1 “Lobbysim existed like, like for all of worlds human history. So I don't think so. I think it's very naive and very very ... it's naive. Imagine about .. How it would be functioning. You don't have here... I need for... If I work on terrorism issue I need any experts and I will not find the experts in the bar before the on the Place Luxembourg”- EPP5
“We are all part of this Europe and we are all part of the reality.” – Corp3
“I mean our stand… Is that.. Well lobbying for us is legal of course we are not saying we should ban lobbying.” – NGO4
“So it's important in a evidence based, knowledge based policymaking process to have these channels of interaction with the business, with consumers, with civil society, even with
Q2 – exceptions to legitimate groups
“The one that comes to my mind at this particular moment is for instance there was a gambling sort of company, which is which is dealing with these, like machines for gamblers and stuff like that... So we decided not to meet them because it's, it's not the point of our interest. And then at the same time we think it's not a very ethical business. So. This is one that comes to my mind.” – EPP2
“.. tobacco industry. So she chooses not to go with any of them. I'm not to receive or not to see any of them. Because of their methods because of their ethics because of what they're doing, so. It's a no. That's mainly the only industry we don't work with.” – ALDE3
“I don't work with some aggressive group who are really aggressive towards MEP's and some with very bad reputation. There were some Iranian NGO's and they were very
interested about human trials or about immigration or about the woman's rights but they were using it for propaganda.” – EPP5
“You know if the Waffen SS Old Boys Association sought a meeting .. then I think, I know, I need a bit of guidance as to whether it was a meeting that could legitimately take place. If al-Qaida sought a meeting exactly the same would apply.” – EFDD1
“Because we can't have some interests with that I know that are wrong here, that are advocating terror or those issues that are out of the scope of European values.” – EPP3
Q3 – Focus on throughput from all stakeholders
“The only way to make good policies is to talk to all, uh, these interest representatives and to make sure that all interests are heard.” – Comm1
“Right. So if we manage to explain our you know how our business works to each one MEP and the MEP then, based on this information and everything else that you heard from other interests if you then base that decision on all this information that's let's say sort of success, right. That's, that's what we're trying to get to, you know.” – Corp1
