Nikolas Papageorgiou (2015) “The unspectacular Union“, The European Magazine, 24 March.
From lobbyists to toasters: Why the EU is not as evil, opaque, or important as we think.
Most people who dive into understanding how things work in Brussels find out the hard way: the way things work in this town is rarely, if ever, shocking enough to be bothered with. Like most things we hear about the European Union, the reality is far less conspiratorial, interesting or polemic. I would like to kick off this column by presenting you with a few arguments that might help you put the European dimension into perspective. “The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic”, John F. Kennedy once said – it’s difficult to imagine he wasn’t thinking of Brussels.
Let us take a look at the three most prominent examples in which overblown legend meets boring reality
The 30,000 lobbyists of Brussels
30,000 lobbyists, so a common tale about the European Union goes, work towards influencing decisions that will affect member states in the long run. A look at the accredited visitors’ register of the European Parliament – the place to be for anyone who would like to have a touch of influence – paints a far less gray picture: at the time of writing this article, only 5,462 people have access to the European Parliament. Considering the fact that some persons with the right to chit-chat with decision-makers have a back office with one to three people, a more reasonable number to juggle with would be a count of around 10,000 to 25,000 lobbyists. Are all of those lobbyists business-oriented? Contrary to common folklore, a third of all interest representations are citizens’ groups: That is, groups that speak on behalf of and for European citizens. Surprisingly to most, studies show that citizens’ groups have been substantially more successful in whispering in the ears of institutions than business-oriented groups. The average lobbying success rate for citizens’ groups is 53 percent; that of business groups is 5 percent.
Relevant posts:
- Mitchell, B. (2015) “Friday lay day – more snake oil from Brussels“, Bill Mitchell Blog, 16 January.
- Fernandes, S. (2014) “Who calls the shots in the euro area? “Brussels” or the member states?“, Policy Paper 111, Jacques Delors Institute, 15 May.
- Merter, S. (2014), “Banking Union and Beyond: Discussion papers for Brussels Think Tank Dialogue”, Bruegel, 28 January.