Twofold Role of National Interest Groups? Members and Membership-Based Organisations

More than half of national interest groups in EU member-states are members of EU-level umbrella organizations. The membership in EU umbrella organizations is important for these groups for several reasons: 1) they may get information about the public policies formed at the EU level; 2) they may get know-how on how to lobby for the optimum policy results; and 3) they may transfer lobbying activities in EU policymaking to EU umbrella organizations or divide the labour with EU umbrella organizations. The previous research shows that membership in EU-level umbrella organizations represent an important route for national interest groups to get involved in EU policymaking. Lobbying directly in Brussels is very demanding and requires professionalization as well as resources from the national interest groups. At the same time EU umbrella organizations are more professionalised and more likely to get access to policymakers at the EU level. EU umbrella organizations that have members from a number of different member-states are perceived as more representative and European Commission in particular is more open to this type of stakeholders. What is more, Commission also frequently supports and funds the establishment of EU umbrella organizations. However, there exists a concern that when citizens are represented through a chain of multiple organizations their voice become weaker. The reasoning of the European Commission to include EU umbrella organizations in the process of the EU policymaking with ambition to get closer to the civil society may thus not be justified. In the relationship between citizens and government just through one interest group, the voice of citizens can be very strong since citizens can take on a role of active members and are included in most of the decisions taken by their interest groups. When the advocacy activities are transferred to umbrella organizations, citizens are less likely to participate in the decisions. The EU umbrella organizations communicates with their members and not with individual citizens. This raises the question about the quality of representation. Up until know the research on interest groups has concentrated mostly on the relationship between national interest groups and their members as well as between EU umbrella organizations and EU institutions. Little is known what is the relationship between EU umbrella organizations and their national interest groups’ members and how internally democratic EU umbrella organisations are? To fill in this research gap we will analyse data gathered in frame of “Comparative Interest Groups Survey”. We will limit our analysis to membership based national interest groups that are members in EU umbrella organizations and compare their relationship with members and umbrella organizations. Our hypothesis is that national interest groups that are more internally democratic and include members in their activities are at the same time more active in EU-level umbrella organizations with intention to represent their members. We will analyse national interest groups from Belgium, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia and Sweden. In this way our aim is to investigate whether there exist differences between older and newer member-states as well as between smaller and bigger member-states?