1. Summary
   1. Paper looks at the role of business actors in lobbying in the EU legislative process contrasted to the role of Citizen Groups
   2. Central question: When does business win and when does it lose in the context of legislative policy making in the EU
   3. Introduction:
      1. Contrasting interests of business and citizen group actors
         1. Businesses want to keep the status quo while citizen groups frequently support new legislation
         2. Businesses put into a defensive position, as most legislation put forward by EC ends up passing & is nowadays concerned with market regulations → focus on minimizing losses
         3. Authors argue that businesses can still defend their standpoint if policy “agreed upon in relatively closed elite circles involving few interest representatives and executive officials”
   4. Previous research / context
      1. Long standing debate about the role of business in EU politics
      2. POV 1: business interests are the most powerful non-state actors in capitalist democratic systems
         1. Supported by observers → business interests more influential than other types of actors
         2. Major influence on the Single European Act
         3. Better access to EU than citizen groups
         4. EU institutional bias in favor of market efficiency
         5. Capital market liberalization → lessen regulations in the EU & businesses profit
      3. POV 2: EU’s institutional structure allows citizen groups to be particularly effective
         1. Multiple access points to influence decision-makers bc of multi-tiered government
         2. EP offers easy access & is growing in power
         3. Greater politicization → more public attention to EU policies → favorable to citizen groups
      4. Research contribution
         1. Broader literature on interest groups
   5. Hypotheses
      1. Business actors are less successful than citizen groups
      2. Business actors are more successful in lobbying in EU legislation the less conflictual a policy episode is
      3. Business actors are more successful in lobbying on EU legislation when the European Parliament only has limited legislative powers
   6. Perform an empirical analysis of a data set
      1. Positions of >1000 non-state actors wrt 70 legislative acts proposed by the EC between 2008 and 2010

Lecture

Vocab:

RTA: Regional trade agreement

TDI: Trade defense instrument

• main players of international trades:
  • With UK, EU would be the largest trader
  • EU & US are deficit economies (more import than export)
• development in international trade:
  • 2022: energy crisis, pandemic, supply chain disruptions → inflation
• Extra-EU trade
  • most export to the US
  • imports mainly from China
  • UK has high proportions as well
  • change in imports from Russia (sanctions) and China (high tech sanctions, geopolitical tensions)
• Extra-EU foreign direct investment positions (companies opening other locations / hiring people)
  • US, UK
  • offshore financial centres / SPEs (special purpose entities)
• World stocks of FDI
  • EU is top investor
  • more than half of world investments come from EU, US & UK
• Trade & investment policy making → what determines objectives of states?
  • society-centred: demands from interest groups (ex: labour organizations), governments carry out demands
    • unilateral trade liberalization: we take away barriers (ex: lowering tariffs), they don’t have to → importers want this
      • CH did this to incentivize commercial activity
    • reciprocal trade liberalization: both sides take away barriers → FTAs
    • ability to influence trade policies based on:
      • resources
      • expertise
  • state-centred: independent economist thinking from state actors
    • infant industry: new industries in countries → needs to be protected (putting in money, raising taxes on imports of competition products)
    • economies of experience: what can be produced well
    • high-tech: competition could be useful but no (?)
    • sensitive technologies
    • hegemonic stability: if we continue to trade the way we do there will be stability (+ sth hierarchical)
    • normative: moral obligation to development
    • neoliberalism: capitalism is good, free market
      • opposite: protectionism (Trump, autonomous & assertive trade policy)
• Role of domestic institutions
  • broad constituency: representing a large amount of people → one person has less impact
    • chance of lobbying higher in narrow constituency bc of reelection chances
    • decision making rules: lobbying changes if an institution can veto
    • systems of interest intermediation: meeting rules, transparency
• Policy making in the EU:
  • Trade policy is exclusive competence of EU
  • Commission proposes (DG Trade), Council approves (usually by QMV), EP approves (by majority)
  • advantage: largest importer/exporter → good negotiating power
  • disadvantage: countries cannot make their own trade agreements
• Lobbying
  • Citizen groups & trade unions also lobby a lot → legislation abt regulation now & gather popular support
• Switzerland & the EU
  • Russia sanctions:
    • CH has been following EU sanctions to an extent