SPECIAL INTERESTS REPRESENTATION IN THE EP

Source: Institutional and Constitutional Aspects of Special Interest Representation- Study for the AFCO Committee (2015). European Parliament Directorate-General for Internal Policies- Policy Department C (Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs)

The maturity of the European Parliament as an EU public policy process and the professionalization of special interests have led to high frequency and sophisticated exchanges of information and expertise. Special interest activity follows the output of Committees in particular for files under OLP (Ordinary legislative procedure), CNS (Consultation Procedure)  and INI (Institutional Procedure: Appointment or Motion of Censure). Significantly the density and diversity of interest groups across committees appears to mirror the patterns seen in the DGs of the Commission.

1. The European Parliament is an important lobbying target that receives intense special interest activity both across it and within its committees from a diverse set of actors. The majority of accredited organizations are private interests associations 30% (professional/ trade/ business); and companies 20%. NGOs, associated with public interests, rank second with 23%, while professional consultancies form the third largest group at 14%. This EU elite-pluralist activity is reflected in the speakers invited at committee hearings. This goes against past research that assumed the EP would face disproportionate lobbying by public interests.
2. MEPs perceive NGOs, associations, companies, and Member State representatives as the most active lobbyists, balancing a supply of both technical and political European level information. As technical information and expertise are becoming a primary access good, special interest activity across institutions appears to be converging, with the EP and the Commission facing the same type of groups but at different phases of the policy cycle. MEPs are contacted most during Committee Amendments and the Plenary Vote by groups that are primarily not from their constituency. Thus there is a distinction in the information supplied and the phase within the policy cycle taking place within the EP.
3. Special interests are perceived to be Moderately influential by more than half of the respondents depending on the type of group. The competitive environment among special interests in Brussels and within the EP has surged along with their numbers. This has led to an increase of the quality of information and expertise they supply as they aim to gain access into the EP. Finally the TR is largely regarded positively with 78% of respondents Agreeing or Completely Agreeing with statements that it Improves the transparency of the EU.

Key Observations

• As a proportion, the EP seems to be facing a greater number of private interests than NGOs in comparison with those faced by the Commission. It is possible that the EP, unlike the Commission, has not created a similar constellation of public interests around it.
• Policy/Committee characteristics impact lobbying activity: the committees facing the largest supply of accredited interests, both private and public, are ITRE, ENVI, IMCO and ECON, which address and impact issues related to EU market integration & regulation.
• Different types of interests cluster across specific groups of committees: private interests cluster primarily around committees addressing market integration & regulation.
• NGOs network more around committees addressing civil rights, development and human rights; LIBE, DEVE, CULT. This suggests that the diversity of interests is defined by the policy area.
• There is a strong correlation between specific types of committee output (procedures) and special interest activity: files under Consultation Procedure, Ordinary Legislative Procedure and Own Initiative Reports attract strong activity from special interests with the first two categories of output showing a strong and statistically significant correlation with all groups and In-House groups; while NGOs are strongly linked to INIs.
• The growth of special interests within the EP has made lobbying more competitive, raising the quality of information and expertise supplied by special interests: MEPs overall find the information and expertise they receive from different groups at least Somewhat and Extremely Useful.
• The European Parliament receives less attention from NGOs than In-House groups, not only within and across it, but also, compared to the Commission, across policy fields. Accredited interests will be registered on the TR, actively engaging with the EP and most likely with the Commission. However, special interests that are only registered (but not accredited) are less likely to be active lobbyists within the EP.
• The TR does well with MEPs perceptions more than 61% of respondents Agree or Completely Agree with the statements that the TR Improves the behaviour of interest groups. While 66% of respondents Agrees or Completely Agree that the TR Is helpful for public interest groups. The TR offers one of the most wide-ranging databases on lobbying activity in the world. However, the data in EP documents, while publicly available face issues regarding the direct accessibility of information contained within them. This hinders the positive impact of the EP transparency project and efforts made overall by the EP to be more transparent, accountable and directly linked to citizens and groups. Accessibility to relevant information is not always direct nor does it take into consideration quick and easy use across data processing systems.

Key Considerations

• The EP is observing increasing lobbying activity that is likely to further increase over the coming years. The majority of the special interests actively and visibly engaging with the EP are private interests (In-House and Professional Consultancies) followed by public interests (NGOs) while few law firms are accredited. Overall results point to a form of elite pluralism.
• The Lisbon Treaty (TEU II 10) places representative democracy as a cornerstone of the EU, and goes on: every citizen shall have the right to participate in the democratic life of the Union. Decisions shall be taken as openly and as closely as possible to the citizen. As such, supporting representative democracy and the openness of the policymaking process is integral to the structure of the EU demos.
• The TR offers a great opportunity to increase the transparency of the EU policymaking process, by making information on special interests available to all of its citizens. The improved easy access to data on the updated TR is a significant and welcomed addition that will help considerably with work on the transparency of the EU.
• The voluntary nature of the TR raises questions about interests that may potentially opt not to register. Specifically regarding the EP, besides non-registered interests, non-accredited interests may still enter the Institution through MEPs’ invitations. This information is not available to the public or EU institutions.
• MEPs are contacted often by Regional and National representatives from Member States and occasionally from non-EU states. Therefore the lobbying of the EP is an activity not limited to private interests or NGOs.
• Information on committee reports and events are essentially scans of the schedule and invited speakers available in pdf format. While this provides a view into the EP’s activity it does not provide an easy extraction of data that can be used for in-depth analysis.
• The EP can become a leader in the field of global transparency and governance simply by making information already accessible more easily available.

Recommendations

1. The EP could consider further supporting and encouraging the activity of public interests (civil society) that actively surround it, across levels. There is already a large pool of NGO groups based in Brussels that can enrich the input of broad debates both within and outside the EP. The EP could consider funding the support of public interest groups that have problems organizing at the EU level especially in areas where there is under-representation.
2. The EP could consider setting a limit on the number of accredited persons per organization or for types of organizations such as professional consultancies in order to balance the ratio of representation and stem potential over-representation within the EP.
3. The EP could consider supporting and encouraging cross-committee activity of special interests. This would reduce the likelihood of creating permanent “insiders” and potential risks of institutional capture by interests.
4. The EP could further enhance the European Parliament Research Service in order to be less dependent on special interest expertise or captive to monopolies of information. In addition the EP could expand resources provided to committee secretariats to support rapporteurs and MEPs directly.
5. As democratic processes are becoming ever more direct through digital means, data contained in publicly available documents could be provided in a format that is easily extractable for direct analysis.
6. Special interests, both registered and accredited, could be given options to indicate clearly and publicly which committees and DGs they are most interested in. This would simplify lobbying activity assessments and tracing the cross-institutional lobbying footprint.
7. Special interests could be asked to log through which other organizations they access the EP policy process, per specific files they are interested in. This would show the degree of individual lobbying intensity on specific piece of legislation and would add to an understanding of the cross-institutional lobbying footprint (point 6)
8. The EP could re-examine the usefulness of the lobbying footprint. The small number of reports with a lobbying footprint annex suggests that different use of it or a re-examination of its purpose could be beneficial. In addition, information on the lobbying footprint when available could be in a format that allows for easy extraction by software.
9. The EP could further incentivize administrators across EU institutions and levels to communicate primarily with special interests registered on the TR.
10. The EP could make information regarding special interests entering the Institution and meetings with specific MEPs and administrative staff publicly available. The absence of such information provides an opportunity for unregulated lobbying with concurrent negative implications for EP legitimacy. It should be noted that the Commission has decided that Commissioners keep such logs and make them publicly available (Timmermans 2014).
11.  As state and regional representatives (EU and non-EU) appear to be active in contacting MEPs, their activity could be logged potentially through a separate register and/ or by MEPs.
12. The inclusion of the Council of the EU in the TR would considerably assist the mapping and understanding of EU inter-institutional lobbying.