Policy Making in the EU: Is Lobbying Democracy in Action?
The Kings College of London celebrated its annual European Week from the 28 January to the 1 February 2013. The event took place within its faculty of Art and Humanities where the attendees could enjoy a number of conferences on European issues and, as a novelty this year, the performance by the Loewenberg Trio, a group of musicians who delighted the audience on Wednesday night.
Next day the speakers brought the discussion into policy making in the EU and the influence of lobbying on its outcome. The European society at King’s College can proudly claim to have hosted renowned professionals from international institutions, national governments and civil society from across the continent.
Jan Krauss, political officer at the European Commission, was responsible for breaking the ice. His eloquent speech dealt with the work of the Commission and highlighted the difficulty that the institution has in order to please all the parts efficiently and democratically. Krauss claimed that the Commission is democratic since the Commissioners have been selected by national governments which are legitimized by national parliaments. However, as he concluded, if the citizens think of democracy as understood at the national level, then the Commission is not the best place to look for it.
John O´Donnell, Reuters correspondent in Brussels, took the floor afterwards and brought the issue of lobbying to the field of journalism and subsequently to the attention that citizens are paying to Brussels. The EU correspondent, a `witness of bureaucracy in action´ claimed that lobbying is a reality that is not transparent, and if it happens, it is because of the lack of interest. Although the renowned journalist did not want talk about corruption, he argued that lobbying is breaking the law on transparency and consequently affecting society´s engagement.
The Labour MEP Mary Honeyball did not leave behind the issue of the lack of interest and she declared that the EU has focused on passing legislation forgetting perhaps to address the people. She went further on this lack of interest referring to the British´ case. Although geography is an important factor, Honeyball called on citizens to engage with Brussels because of the relevance of EU decisions in their life. She closed her speech by returning to the issue of the interest groups adding that EU decision-makers are being lobbied because of their role in the policy making. She stated that the EU policy makers do not only receive influence from industries and corporations, but from the whole civil society, NGOs included.
The conference was coming to an end and the last speaker, Charles Tannock, Conservative MEP for London, had the last word to address the influence of the lobby groups on his domain, the European Parliament. The MEP justified the influence of those groups due to the limited resources that the EP committees usually have in order to deal with complicated pieces of legislation. Tannock argued that European institutions need the expertise of all sort of professions in order to legislate in an appropriate way. The MEP also answered O´Donnell after denouncing the lack of transparency of the procedures; the MEP stated that he has to declare every lobby each 6 months.
The Questions and Answers session engaged the speakers with the audience and helped to clarify further ideas and to highlight the great relevance that lobbying has in the decision making on the EU and consequently in the lives of its citizens. It was concluded that the great development in the lobbying activity is its recognition as a normal practice. Despite the negative connotations that the word lobby could have, its recognition as a normal practice opens the door to more transparent procedures in which European institutions can demonstrate their will for making decisions as closely as possible to the citizens.
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Written by Carlos Oliva-Quintana
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