Lobbying in Europe: Public Affairs and the Lobbying Industry in 28 EU Countries

Abstract

This is a 32 chapter guide to the workings of lobbying in the EU and associated debates.It is to aid transparencyFor those studying or working in the field of Public Affairs, in the wide area that connects politics, law, business and communication, Europe represents a fascinating challenge. The European continent provides an incredibly rich picture of political cultures, of institutional frameworks, of governmental styles, of different social, economic and historical traditions, which make up probably the most complex and variegated scenario we may find in the whole world. Even limiting our view to the twenty-eight European Union member states, and considering the unprecedented effort of convergence between different political and legal systems represented today by the EU and by an on-going integration process, we are in front of the most multifaceted Public Affairs arena on the planet, with a composite frame of political systems, a multi-level governance, a population of more than half a billion people speaking at least twenty-four different languages, and one of the most competitive and developed markets, representing around 25% of world GDP. To be able to comprehend how Public Affairs work in such a complex and unique environment can bring us to comprehend a lot about both the industry of Public Affairs in itself and that particular environment as well. That is why, in conceiving this volume, we chose to focus on Europe and on Public Affairs. We decided to narrow our perspective to the EU countries, for a twofold reason. Firstly, we needed a clear and objective criterion to select the cases to analyse and so decide what countries to include in our overview, and EU membership appeared a sufficiently good and definite one, leading us to twenty-eight different case studies (plus the one on the supranational environment of “Brussels bubble”): a size which certainly can be considered rather large in terms of empirical data collected, and – filling an existing gap in the existing literature on the subject – for the first time covering the whole range of national cases within the European Union itself. Secondly, unlike other European countries which are not members of the EU (in 2016 at least), such as Switzerland, Norway or Ukraine, all EU member states have witnessed a convergence and the development of common frameworks of values and institutional designs, due to the influence of the integration process and the shared belonging to a political union, thus allowing common references to be found and making some comparisons easier for an observer. We also chose a field, that of Public Affairs and lobbying, which is meaningful for a number of reasons. Study lobbying in order to study democracy What is democracy today? The world became too complex, trade unions and industry associations no longer enough Multiplicity of interests and policy networks Neo-corporatism, elitism and pluralism in political science History of lobbying (Phil?) Definition of lobbying, theoretical problems “the word lobbying has seldom been used the same way twice by those studying the topic” (Baumgartner and Leech 1998, 33) (Beyers, Eisin and Maloney 2008