Lobbying the European Union: Institutions, Actors, and Issues
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Lobbying the European Union This page intentionally left blank Lobbying the European Union: Institutions, Actors, and Issues Edited by David Coen and Jeremy Richardson 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York # The several contributors 2009 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2009 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Library of Congress Control Number: 2009923183 Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, Wiltshire ISBN 978–0–19–920735–0 13579108642 Contents List of Figures vii List of Tables viii Box ix Preface x Biographies xii Abbreviations xiv Part I: Introduction 1. Learning to Lobby the European Union: 20 Years of Change 3 David Coen and Jeremy Richardson Part II: Institutional Demands 2. The European Commission 19 Pieter Bouwen 3. The European Parliament 39 Wilhelm Lehmann 4. Least Accessible but not Inaccessible: Lobbying the Council and the European Council 70 Fiona Hayes-Renshaw 5. Interest Groups and the European Court of Justice 89 Margaret McCown 6. COREPER and National Governments 105 Sabine Saurugger 7. The European Economic and Social Committee 128 Martin Westlake Part III: Actor Supply 8. Business Lobbying in the European Union 145 David Coen v Contents 9. NGOs as Gatekeepers: A Green Vision 169 Tony Long and Larisa Lo¨rinczi Part IV: Sectoral Studies 10. The Changing World of European Health Lobbies 189 Scott L. Greer 11. A Ban on Tobacco Advertising: The Role of Interest Groups 212 Sandra Boessen and Hans Maarse 12. Politics of Food: Agro-Industry Lobbying in Brussels 233 Wyn Grant and Tim Stocker 13. Bargaining and Lobbying in the EU Social Policy 256 Oliver Treib and Gerda Falkner 14. Trade Policy Lobbying in the European Union: Who Captures Whom? 277 Cornelia Woll 15. Regulating Lobbying in the European Union 298 Daniela Obradovic Part V: Conclusion 16. Institutionalizing and Managing Intermediation in the EU 337 Jeremy Richardson and David Coen Index 351 vi List of Figures 1.1. European interest groups according to domain and year of foundation from 1843 to 2001 6 2.1. Number of interest groups active in various Directorate-Generals 24 8.1. The changing nature of business political activity in the EU 148 8.2. Allocation of business political resources 2005 151 8.3. Variance in business lobbying along policy process and issue 154 8.4. Firms with public affairs offices 2003 155 8.5. Perceived effectiveness of lobbying efforts at the European Commission 157 8.6. Evolving EU business–government relations 159 vii List of Tables 2.1. Types of groups receiving funding from the European Commission 27 2.2. Consultative Committees in the area of financial services 31 3.1. Percentage of acts adopted in first, second, and third readings under the codecision procedure since the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam (1 May 1999) 60 6.1. Seconded national experts 114 6.2. National coordination systems at the European level: sample 115 8.1. European Commission and lobbying resources dependency 153 11.1. Overview of the formal and informal institutions in relation to interest groups’ main points of access 215 viii Box 3.1. The mechanics of the codecision and consultation procedures 44 ix Preface In the Preface to the 1993 edition of this volume, edited by Sonia Mazey and Jeremy Richardson, it was suggested that ‘shifts in power are noted and acted upon by interest groups, who act as a type of weather vane for the locus of power in society’. The thrust of this new volume is very similar in that we see a consistent picture of interest groups exhibiting strong adaptive tendencies. The developments since the 1993 volume have been unidirectional confirm- ing that groups, generally being rational actors, understand that it is best to ‘shoot where the ducks are’. Groups, therefore, allocate lobbying resources to those venues which present particular opportunities in the circumstances at the time and have the capacity to shift resources to alternative venues when necessary. Thus, the multi-institutional, multilevel, European Union policy process presents many opportunities for venue shopping by groups and there is plenty of evidence that groups are increasingly adept at exploiting the particular traits of the EU policy game. Similarly, groups are seemingly increasingly adept at recognizing that ad hoc coalition building is also increasingly important to successful lobbying. The numbers of groups active in Brussels and Strasburg are now so large that any one interest or set of interests will find it difficult to mobilize sufficient resources on its own to secure a policy ‘win’. Allies must be found and net- works of support must be constructed which span the complex institutional environment in which groups operate. However, this innovative stance by groups is underpinned by a quite famil- iar phenomena, namely the need for policy-makers to consult those interests who might be affected by any proposed policy change. This ‘logic of consult- ation and negotiation’ is timeless and entirely familiar to group theorists. It is no surprise that the EU now has a fifty-year-old mature interest group system as it would be difficult, if not impossible, to govern without one. The massive mobilization of interests in the EU is not without its problems of course. Familiar questions of transparency, possible elite capture of access, and even of lobbying regulation have arisen within the EU as at the national level. Moreover, the EU seems no better at resolving these difficult issues, which go to the heart of the democratic process, than have the member states. Our hope is that we have managed to at least shed more light on how the EU x Preface lobbying system works so that others may be better able to judge if the system is the bane or basis of democracy. In preparing this volume, we owe our greatest debt to our contributors. They have all been superbly professional in delivering draft and final chapters on time and to a very high standard. Moreover, they have been unfailingly patient and supportive as we, as Editors, have occasionally been blown of course by the vicissitudes of life. We could not have wished for a more cooperative group of colleagues. We also owe a huge debt to Dominic Byatt, Oxford University Press. He has been supportive and enthusiastic throughout and has been patient beyond the call of duty as deadline after deadline has been missed. Finally we dedicate this volume to our wives, Natasha Coen and Sonia Mazey, who have grown used to taking second place as the volume edged towards completion. Their support has been vital to us. University College, London, UK David Coen Nuffield College, Oxford, UK Jeremy Richardson National Centre for Research on September 2008 Europe, Canterbury University, New Zealand xi Biographies Sandra Boessen works at the Department of Health Organisation, Policy and Economics of the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences at Maastricht University, The Netherlands Pieter Bouwen works for the European Commission. He holds a doctoral degree from the European University Institute in Florence and is also a profes- sor at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium David Coen is a Professor of Public Policy and Deputy Head of the Department of Political Science in the School of Public Policy, University College London, UK Gerda Falkner is Director of the Institute for European Integration Research at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and a Professor of Political Science at the University of Vienna, Austria Wyn Grant is a Professor of Politics at the University of Warwick, UK Scott L. Greer is an Assistant Professor, Health Management and Policy, Uni- versity of Michigan School of Public Health, USA, and Senior Research Fellow at LSE Health, UK Fiona Hayes-Renshaw is a Visiting Professor at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium Wilhelm Lehmann is Principal Administrator at the European Parliament, Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs. He also teaches on European institutions at the Law Faculty of the University of Grenoble, France Tony Long is the founder and