THE BRUSSELS LOBBYING COMMUNITY

According to Joost Berkhout, University of Amsterdam, the Brussels lobbying community consists of about 30 per cent ‘residents’ and about 70 per cent ‘tourists’.  The 70 percent ‘tourists’ are organizations that  are either primarily concerned with non-EP, non-EC or non-policy related work, or ‘return’ to their national political environments.

 As policy issues move from being ‘on the agenda’ towards being decided upon, institutional mechanisms make sure that the scope of the political conflict narrows and the range of participants involved becomes smaller. This implies that there is likely to be a difference between ‘the whole’ population of organized interests and those that are actually being heard by policy makers.

As regards lobby practice, Joost Berkhout’s findings suggest that Brussels lobbyists are impatient and selective in their attention to public policy. Impatient in terms of the time invested in tracking policies (which seems relatively short compared to the policy process) and selective in terms of their institutional focus (which seems to be either EP or European Commission (EC).

Findings

Number of registrants in the EP register constant at around 1500 organisations

• 30% ‘residents’, registering for more than 40 weeks, 70% ‘tourists’
• Longer term population over 4000 organisations
• Differences in lobby experience

 Scope of political conflict tends to narrow through the policy process

• ‘whole’ population differs from active population in size and constituents,
• composition is similar
• business interest representation (around 60 per cent),
• national/European/supra-national (1/3 each)
• collective, associational (1/3), individual firm or institutional representatives (1/3), citizens’ groups (1/3)

 Lobby practice and Registration

• Lobby practice: (Short-term, Narrow institutional focus)
• Lobby transparancy (‘it takes two to tango’: who participates in meetings in the buildings of the Commission, Council and Parliament)