May the force be with us – The power of interest groups in the European Green Deal

With the European Green Deal (EGD), the European Commission has committed itself to a highly complex undertaking. The road to the goal of a more climate-friendly European Union is long and windy. One aspect particularly contributing to this complexity is the fact that several policy areas are interlinked and weighed against each other in the EGD. In addition, the high social relevance of climate change policy inflicts further complexities upon decision-makers. Interest groups active in the EU have also been faced with special challenges here. Their expertise is in greater demand than ever before, but at the same time they now have to keep track of a number of interwoven legislative proposals. This also presents interest groups with new questions and challenges regarding possible alliances with other groups. In the proposed paper, I aim to address these new challenges for interest groups and analyze how interest groups have encountered them. For the empirical analysis, I make use of qualitative interviews on interest groups in the EGD with decision-makers, interest groups, and policy advisors in the EU. From these interviews, I draw answers to the research question "What power do interest groups have in the European Green Deal?" using qualitative methods. I pay particular attention to the strategies that interest groups have used in the complex field of climate change policy and explore their perceived effectiveness. In addition, I also examine the building of alliances by interest groups in the EGD. This addresses the question whether new and complex policy areas lead interest groups to form unlikely and new coalitions. Overall, I aim to address questions of power and representation in the EU’s system of interest representation by looking at interest groups in the highly complex and politicized policy area of the EGD.