The European Parliament (EP) is often described as the legislative institution that is most responsive to the interests of civil society. We investigate and find evidence in support of this assertion, and explain the legislative implications. Specifically, citizen groups are more successful in achieving their policy goals when the EP is relatively powerful vis-à-vis the Council in respect to both legislative procedure and mode of agreement. Concretely our analysis indicates that civil society exerts a stronger influence over legislative outcomes when the EP is most united, and is able to forge early agreement with the Council. But, surprisingly we find that civil society organisations are more successful when it comes to constraining market making policies than they are at limiting the less desirable effects of market regulation policies. The analysis combines data on EP voting behaviour and legislative agreements on over 50 legislative issues across 40 legislative proposals.
