Rinus van Schendelen

The in-sourced experts

The Commission, empowered by Treaty with the exclusive monopoly of drafting EU legislation, is clearly under-resourced and particularly understaffed. The average size of its almost 20 Directorates-General (DGs) is about 700 policy-related people (not including technical, secretarial and language staff) and that of a policy unit of about 20 persons. Taking all staff together, the Commission has a smaller apparatus than the local government of Rotterdam and only two per cent of that of the US federal government. At the same time it is overloaded with demands coming from the numerous interest groups, including the other EU bodies and the member-state governments, all lobbying the Commission for their desired outcomes. The overload is not only one of volume but, due to the frequently conflicting demands, also of content. The resulting issues represent the politically ‘irritating’ differences of Europe. In many different ways the Commission might restore the balance between work and capacity – in short, manage the overload. One major alternative is to reduce the work by selecting a few priorities, by combining single issues to a package and/or by postponing them. To a small degree the Commission does all this, but both external and internal pressures limit the room for manoeuvre. Many public and private interest groups established in the member countries and elsewhere urge it to draft measures to settle their issues. The Commission itself has a strong ambition to act as the integrator of Europe and therefore dislikes reducing the stream of work coming to it. It prefers to consider the other major alternative, namely the increase of its capacity. It might do so by hiring in more personnel, by contracting out some amount of work and/or by attracting volunteers. The first two options it uses modestly, as the member state governments are reluctant to provide the financial means for more personnel and contracts. Free of costs, however, the Commission ‘outsources’ the implementation of directives and much of the monitoring of policies to particularly national civil servants. The third option is to attract and use volunteers.

Brussels: The premier league of lobbying

Lobbying is of all times and places. It also takes place at the level of the European Union (EU), where thousands of lobby groups are active all days. In this chapter the concept of lobbying is used in a technical way, free from emotional connotations. It refers to more unorthodox efforts of both public and private interest groups to influence officials in the desired direction. The EU system appears to be very open and irresistible to lobby groups. Due to the decline of national co-ordination the lobby groups, acting more self-reliantly now and thus showing their idiosyncrasies, get their more European patterns of behaviour by the rise of both collective action and professional lobbying. All groups take part in collective action. But only a few do the lobbying more professional by defining their ambitions carefully, by doing a lot of studious work before and by lobbying prudently. To the many amateurish groups they set the trend. Finally EU lobbying is discussed for four dependent variables: effectiveness, quality of outcomes, democracy and integration.

Trends im EU-Lobbying und in der EU-Forschung

Viele Wissenschaftler, die sich mit dem Studium der EU befassen, bewegen sich nach wie vor in den Fusstapfen der Grundungsvater der EU wie Jean Monnet, Walter Hallstein und Henri Spaak, die von dem Wunsch angetrieben wurden, die haufig kriegerischen europaischen Staaten friedlich mit Hilfe eines Systems der gemeinsamen Politik aneinander zu binden. Explizit oder implizit sehen diese Wissenschaftler, den Integrationsprozess dabei entweder als wichtigste abhangige Variable in ihren empirischen Studien oder als entscheidendes Kriterium in ihren normativen Studien an. Sie tendieren dann oft dazu, die EU als eine einzigartige Konstruktion, als ein System „sui generis“, zu betrachten. Aber auch bei diesen Europaforschern finden sich genauso Differenzen wie schon bei den „wandernden Gelehrten“ im Mittelalter (Waddel 1952)