The Legitimation of European Interest Groups: Analysis of National Groups’ Discourses

The aim of this paper is to identify how national interest groups (NIGs) legitimise European interest groups (EIGs) representing them at the EU-level. As a response to the EU legitimacy crisis, the European institutions strive to increase the legitimacy of the EU by including civil society in the decision-making process. For years, EU institutions have informed, consulted and worked with European interest groups which gather together national interest groups. During the last decade, the EU shifted its EU-society relations model from the promotion of consultations with European groups (partnership model) to a system where citizens and national groups should play a more important role (participatory model). This shift constitutes a challenge for EIGs, which see their position of privileged interlocutors of institutions threatened. At the same time, we observe disconnections between NIGs and EIGs. National groups are not always involved in EIGs’ internal structures and some are rather ignorant about their European representative organisations’ activities. Overall, we know little about the perspective of NIGs themselves: how they perceive their European organisations, and how they legitimise their EU representatives. In an empirical and bottom-up perspective, this article explores the perceptions of NIGs by asking the following question: which conceptions of “European interest groups legitimacy” do national interest groups have? The role of national groups within EIGs has been little discussed by EU studies. Nevertheless, addressing the perceptions national members have of their European umbrellas is crucial to put the official discourse of the EU institutions and (negative) conclusions of previous normative studies on the subject into perspective. The aim of this empirical analysis of organisational legitimacy is to assess the role of intermediary of EIGs, from the point of view of national groups. Through a thematic analysis of 79 interviews with staff members of NIGs (sectional and cause groups) from four EU Member-States (France, Malta, Slovenia and Sweden), this paper identifies the different elements in the discourses of national groups that legitimise EIGs. The qualitative analysis of NIGs’ discourses indicates that they are not totally in line with the official discourse of EU institutions nor with the output of normative studies. All things considered, if EIGs have to be treated as representatives of NIGs at the EU level, the analysis of NIGs' perceptions suggests that they must be considered first and foremost as acting as trustees of their constituencies in Brussels (and not as delegate). This has normative implications for the European democracy with regard to the role assigned to EIGs in the EU decision-making process. Though one may consider that EIGs should act as ‘super-conducting transmitters’ between NIGs and European officials, it appears that it is not the role assigned to EIGs by their members. EIGs are thus not legitimised by their members as accurate transmitters of aggregated national positions to European decision-makers, but rather as symbolic champions of encompassing constituencies. Referring to Easton's conceptualisation of support, EIGs are legitimised by their member organisations for what they are (diffuse support) rather than for what they do (specific support).