To what extent, is the European Union more democratic with the increasing involvement of interests groups in the EU's decision-making process?

Résumé du document

Most interest groups emerged as Europe's post war construction developed, with a key growth period in the early 1990's coinciding with relaunching of European integration through the Single European Act in 1986 and the treaty of Maastricht in 1992. The special institutional character of the EU and, in particular, its fragmented system of power creates a unique environment in which private and public interests can operate. As the range of European policy-making has been extended, and as European legislation has become more technical and detailed, more and more interests groups have recognised that European public policy is a key feature of their organisational environment2. Both private interest groups, (profit organizations), and public interests (non-profit interests) are present in Brussels trying to influence the process of decision making and the European legislation by lobbying the institutions3. The European interest group system is now extremely extensive.

Extraits

[...] The counter-power represented by the outside interests seems damaged by this dependence The outside interest : an elitist expertise Rather than to influence properly the European legislation process, the outside interests provide an useful expertise to resolve the Commission's ‘management deficit'. This institution has too much to do and not enough people to do it with. Interest groups can provide the services with technical information and constructive advice. For instance, as we saw below, the territorial interests have little influence in the European Union mainly because the size of the funds is decided upon by Member States in intergovernmental summitry. Regions from centralized countries (Greece, Portugal and Ireland) are the worst represented in Brussels, with Portugal not represented at all. [...]

[...] For instance, when the 1998 ‘funding crisis' of social NGOs blew up, Commission officials in some services left their desks to join NGOs in street protests outside Commission offices. Judgements delivered by the ECJ have also had a major impact on the course of European Integration and a significant number of these have centrally involved public society interests (see Defrenne cases with the Women's Legal Defence Fund). As a response to the economic integration, consumer groups were involved in markets and their regulation, early. [...]

[...] In this essay, we will argue that the European Union, as it is a new political system created in 1957, is dealing with an imperfect relationship with the outside interests in the policy-making process. The interest groups, representing the civil society, support a more democratic and legitimate European policy (Part 1). However, their position is ambiguous: they provide a dependent and elitist expertise to the European Institutions threatening their political influence (Part 2). 1.Who is represented? Towards a more balanced influence between private and public interest or the strengthening of the democratic process In order to evaluate whether the involvement of outside interests in the EU's decision-making process make for better, more democratic and legitimate policy, we have to examine who is represented and the influence of these interests. [...]

[...] For them, the price that ETUC has paid has been high, being drawn into an agenda of liberalization and monetary union from which it was unlikely to benefit. Moreover, the dependence on the Commission is clear when the institution interfered in the formation of a interest groups. For instance, the initial phase of formation of the ERT formation included senior Community bureaucrats, with Commissioner Davignon reportedly recruiting most of the members of the original group (Sandholtz and Zysman 1989; Fielder quoted in Greenwood 2003). We can also note that the European Commission has encouraged the creation of euro groups (Smiths and Winand 2002). [...]

[...] The natural links between trade unionists and the Party of European Socialists in the European Parliament provide it with important access to this co-decision-maker. The relationship between ETUC (European Trade Union Confederation) and the Parliament has been so strong that the former UNICE Secretary General, Zygmut Tyszkiewqicz quoted in the Greenwood's book, once complained that ‘ETUC has a privileged relationship with the European Parliament which shares its objectives and consistently passes resolutions by a large majority, advocating social policies that business finds unacceptable' (Greenwood 2003). [...]