The Modern Experience of Lobbying Interests in Europe

OKSANA KOVALOVA

PhD student, Department of the Political Theories, National University Odessa Academy of Law,

UKRAINE

ORCID identifier: 0000-0002-5138-0918

ELLA MAMONTOVA

Doctor of Political Science, Professor, Department of the political theories

National University Odessa Academy of Law Odessa, UKRAINE

PhD in Political Science (Department of Political Science and Philosophy), Department of Political

Science and Philosophy, Kamianets-Podіlskyi National Ivan Ohiienko University, UKRAINE

ORCID identifier: 0000-0001-9657-0902

TATIANA VOROPAYEVA

PhD in Psychology, Associate Professor, Senior Researcher, Center for Ukrainian Studies, Faculty of

Philosophy, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, UKRAINE

ORCID identifier: 0000-0001-8388-7169

relevant regulations and political decisions by political actors with the assistance of interest groups for the

effective implementation of public policy. The purpose of the study is to establish the patterns of implementation

of interest lobbying policy in Europe and assessing the reliability of lobbying activities in European countries

and EU institutions to check the effectiveness of lobbying interests’ modern experience in Europe and

mechanisms in ensuring transparency and its integrity in the EU. Research methods: comparative analysis;

regression analysis; systematization, generalization. Results. Availability has established the relationship

between disclosure by lobbyists and oversight of compliance with the rules of the register and transparency in

lobbying. Lobby transparency has been identified as too weak across Europe, as the implementation of the

Transparency Register, which aims to regulate lobbying, has not protected against its excessive influence. The

largest expenditure on EU lobbying for the period 2017-2018 falls on countries such as Belgium, Germany, and

Keywords: lobbyists, lobbying, lobbying of interest, lobbying activity, lobbyists' registers, Transparency

Register, EU institutions, EU countries, European Union, integrity mechanisms, technology companies.

Received: March 29, 2022. Revised: March 19, 2023. Accepted: April 25, 2023. Published: May 31, 2023.

and transnational political institutions, such as the

European Union, that have an interest in regulating

lobbying to reduce political propaganda by interest

groups has increased. The implementation of

relevant legislation will help increase transparency

in the legislative decision-making process. The

creation of open national registers of lobbyists

involved in regulation in the EU is based on the idea

that transparency is a determining factor of

accountability and subcontracting is the ability of

however, lobbying can create problems of unequal

access, bias, and even corruption. Thus, the need to

regulate these activities is now a widely accepted

process, with the result that international bodies

such as the Organization for Economic Co-

operation and Development (OECD) and, more

recently, the Council of Europe have issued

recommendations and guidelines on lobbying.

Public registers of lobbyists, often supplemented by

codes of conduct, where the most commonly used

associations, trade unions, civil society

organizations, and social organizations have

aggregate political goals (Beyers et al., 2008),

where one of the main goals of interest lobby groups

is to influence political decisions (Dür, 2008a;

Klüver, 2011). However, understanding lobbying is

problematic for democratic governance because

politics tends to perceive certain interest groups that

can undermine majority power and jeopardize

public interests (Stevens F., De Bruycker I., 2020).

discussion between civil society and government

about how processes can be managed better and

more effectively, which problems to ignore and

which to solve. Due to the observance of legal

norms and rules, lobbying will be defined as a basis

of a healthy civil society of the XXI century. Thus,

lobbying in Europe is seen as a very important

factor for the development of European public

policy (Růžičková, K., 2010).

The need to implement public policy is

research results lies in the further application of

modern experience of lobbying in Europe to

promote the implementation of state policy, which

provides "a way of state development where public

affairs will be managed to take into account the

interests of society" (Brundtland, G., 1987).

The aim of the study - to establish

regularities of realization of policy of lobbying of

interests in Europe and assessing the reliability of

its activities in European countries and EU

composition of registrants in the Register of

Transparency and the Percentage of these

registrants, according to the location of the head

office within the EU.

2. To analyze the number of lobbying

meetings of registrants and determine in which

areas these meetings were held in the field of

lobbying.

3. Identify lobbying transparency

mechanisms in European countries and EU

but Transparency International EU (henceforth - TI

EU) makes every effort to ensure the transparency

and ethics of such activities at the EU level.

Brussels is the second capital of the world in terms

of lobbying interests after Washington. At least

48,000 people work in this European capital in

organizations that seek to influence EU institutions

and decisions, with 7,500 of them having an

accredited lobby to the European Parliament. About

12,000 organizations on the EU's current register of

lobbying. Parliament and the Commission have a

common voluntary register of lobbyists, which

lacks adequate resources to supervise registrars

properly. In the last mandate, the European

Commission proposed to regulate this sector

through a mandatory register common to all three

EU institutions, which is a long-term policy

perspective. Unfortunately, despite many years of

negotiations, the "mandatory EU Transparency

Register" is not yet a reality. The European

influencing decision-making and policy

implementation in the EU institutions. All

registrants have signed a common code of conduct

(EUR-Lex, 2014). By disclosing what interests are

being pursued, by whom, and with what level of

resources, the Transparency Register allows for

stronger public scrutiny (European Commission,

2009). This allows citizens, the media, and

stakeholders to monitor the activities and potential

influence of stakeholders on the formulation of EU

cover the problems of stakeholders in political

decision-making." (Leif & Speth, 2006). Many

definitions of lobbying include such an aspect as a

particularly desirable influence on policy decisions

(Kleinfeld, Willems & Zimmer, 2007; Michalowitz,

2004; Greenwood, 2007). When it comes to the

details of lobbying, the opinions of experts are even

more contradictory. Kleinfeld et al. (2007) view

lobbying as a legitimate attempt to influence policy

outcomes and recognize criticism of lobbying as

may also represent the interests of certain interest

groups (Redelfs, 2006). Busch-Janser S. and

Vondenhoff C. concluded, "Lobbying is a mediator

between society, business and politics. It does not

only enable those who represent themselves to have

a voice in political decisions but also translates the

code of policy" (Busch-Janser, S., Vondenhoff, C.,

2008). They think, like Althaus (Althaus, 2001),

that lobbying is not only a process of influencing

politics but also a mediator between politics,

including the public) (Scheske, S., 2011).

Lobbying at the European level, in

particular by corporate interest groups, has led to

claims that lobbying reduces the transparency of

European Union governance and opens the door to

the possibility of writing legislation that is contrary

to or ambiguous about the public interest

(Chambers, A., 2016). Given the different views on

lobbying, it should be seen as a whole as an attempt

to influence policy-making against the background

issue (Brendan J. & Rasmussen A., 2017). With the

right lobbying, this process will play an important

role in shaping and improving public policy, as civil

servants cannot be experts on every issue (Burson

Marsteller, 2013). Nevertheless, for lobbying to

play a constructive role and become legitimate in

in Europe, in terms of in-depth integration of

national economies into the structure of world

socio-political, foreign, and Ukrainian scientists

study economic space sufficiently.

Thus, the problem of promoting the

experience of lobbying interests in Europe is widely

reflected in scientific publications in the form of

theoretical research and practical research.

However, the issue of promoting the modern

experience of lobbying in Europe remains relevant

relevant acts and decision-making in the field of

lobbying.

The statistical analysis method was used to

display statistics on the distribution of the current

composition of registrants in the Register of

Transparency, Percentage of Registrants,

lobbying activities in European countries and EU

institutions.

have a greater interest in lobbying EU political and

legislative issues. The largest expenditure on EU

lobbying for the period 2017-2018 falls on

Belgium, Germany, and Italy, where of the top 30

countries that have spent money on EU lobbying,

five countries that are not part of the EU and namely

Fig. 3. Increase in in-house lobby budget 2014 -

2020 (in millions of €)

Source: Compiled by the authors by official

data of Transparency International EU, (2021).

Google, Facebook, and Microsoft are

among the organizations that have published the

most lobbying meetings in Juncker's years. The

main topic lobbied by these companies was the

single digital market, which accounted for 15% of

all 540 published meetings, and the next important

der Leyen Commission in December 2019 did not

significantly change the priorities in terms of digital

policy. One of the stated main objectives, together

with the European Green Course, is to refine the

rules underlying the digital single market. In 2020,

COVID-19 is considered a topic for 15% of all

meetings held by the Commission, making it,

together with the Digital Services Act, a major topic

for large technology companies. The trend of the

dominance of corporate lobbying continues during

2020 (in millions of €)

Source: Compiled by the authors by official

data of Transparency International EU, (2021).

Although Google, Facebook, and Microsoft

are among the top five lobbying organizations, there

is a more even distribution of meetings between

corporate and civic organizations (44% and 39%,

respectively) (Transparency International EU,

2021).

The EU countries surveyed have access to

information on legislation, except for Cyprus, but

there are significant shortcomings in the EU both in

terms of the quality of laws and in terms of their

implementation. In all but two countries (Slovakia

and the United Kingdom), citizens face barriers to

freedom of information, because contacts are not

documented and therefore data do not exist, or

because such information is made private (Bulgaria,

Cyprus, Estonia, France, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania,

Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom).

Slovenia, Ireland, the European Commission,

EU country/organization receiving the highest

score first.

Lobbying registers are fast becoming the

most popular transparency tool in the field of

interest lobbying. From the 19 countries surveyed,

10 of them have some form of lobbying register,

the French Senate, the Netherlands, the EU

Transparency Register) or registers targeting

institutions at the subnational level (Tuscany,

Molise and Abruzzo, Italy and Catalonia, Spain).

Table 2 shows the results of regression

modeling, which allows reflecting the relationship

between the results of registration and disclosure of

information by lobbyists and monitoring

compliance with the rules of the register and

transparency of lobbying activities in European

countries and EU institutions.

The equation of correlation-regression

−2,75

compliance with the rules of the register and

transparency in the field of lobbying. The model

parameters are statistically significant, as indicated

by tStat in the amount of 8.78 and 7.99 and a P-

value of 0,000000018 and 0.00000008.

Table 2. The results of regression modeling

The value of the coefficient of

determination indicates that the 62% model

explains the relationship between disclosure by

lobbyists and monitoring compliance with the rules

of the register and transparency in lobbying. This

suggests that other factors are influencing the

reliability of lobbying in European countries and

EU institutions, which are not included in the

Italy, and Latvia) there are no measures to regulate

the further activities of officials between the public

sector and the lobbying world. Where rules exist,

they often do not cover the lobbying goals needed

to realize their potential to reduce risk. The main

gap is that members of parliament are very rarely

subject to restrictions on further employment, even

though they are a high-risk category and can engage

in lobbying activities. In only one of the 19

Table 3. How reliable are integrity mechanisms designed to promote ethical lobbying among lobbyists

and decision-makers in European countries and EU institutions?

for deeper integration of the European economic

and note that this dominance is likely to contribute

At the same time, the broad distribution of

power in the EU not only contributes to the

formation of various areas in which lobbyists

participate but also ensures certain isolation of

European institutions from interest groups, which

are usually better organized than others.

importance of business associations at the European

level compared to other lobbying strategies.

It can be argued that lobbying is likely to

increase in the future, albeit more slowly than in the

last 10-15 years. In this aspect, we can agree with

the opinion of De Fouloy (2001), which identified

some key factors that will continue to promote

lobbying by interest groups: further EU

consolidation and the legitimacy of legislation; a

harsh economic and political climate in which more

specialization within branch knowledge.

Due to the impact of globalization

processes, lobbyists will have to work in a more

complex political environment, as the integration of

new Member States has a political culture that is

significantly different from the culture of current

EU members. As a result, interest groups will face

new challenges, as the EU institutions and their

decision-making mechanisms are determined by

European law, which will lead to increased

to uphold this right, but it is equally important to

recognize the rights of others to access decisions

taken at the European level, ensuring the most

transparent contact of outsiders with EU actors and

institutions so that European citizens can influence

effective political and legislative decisions. It has

been established that it is impossible to make

lobbying at any level of European policy

completely transparent due to the impractical

interpretation of the concept of lobbying, acceptable

of lobbying.

Thus, improving lobbying in Europe can be

the latest paradigm of implementation in all

institutions of the general principle that politicians

(both elected and non-elected) only accept meeting

requests from registered lobbyists, and meetings

must be formally registered. All lobbyist meetings

should be published on a centralized platform in an

open search format. EU institutions and policies

need to take a more proactive approach to ensure a

result, the implementation of legislation in the field

of lobbying in Europe is becoming a topic of great

interest both for the actors themselves and for the

public sector as a whole.

The practical significance of the study is

that the theoretical provisions, conclusions, and

recommendations developed by the author and

proposed in the article can be used to improve the

system of lobbying interests in Europe, improve

organizational links and mechanisms for lobbying