Access to EU Institutions: How Big is the Advantage of Business?

This paper analyses the differences in strategies for inside lobbying between business and non-business groups. At the supranational level of EU policy-making, organized interests can pursue their political goals in multiple institutional venues. We expect business organizations, including firms, in general to lobby EU institutions more frequently than non-business groups. This has three reasons: First research has shown that business groups rely to a higher degree on inside lobbying, while citizen groups spend more time on outside lobbying. Second, business groups can offer more technical knowledge to EU institutions, which is important to them in drafting and adopting legislation. Third, business group on average possess more material resources, facilitating access to policymakers, as previous research has shown. However, we expect context to matter as well. Thus, the inside lobbying advantage of business will be more pronounced in executive, compared to legislative institutions, since technical knowledge is more important in the former venue. Furthermore, legislative institutions are generally regarded as allies of citizen groups, since these can provide parliamentary groups with political capital. Hence, we expect the lobbying advantage of business groups to be smaller in the European Parliament. Despite being the second legislative chamber of the EU, we argue that the institutional environment of the Council is more similar to an executive institution because it composed of national government representatives.