Lobbying Institutional Key Players: How States Seek To Influence The European Commission, The Council Presidency and The European Parliament

JCMS 2012 Volume 50. Number 1. pp. 129–150 DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-5965.2011.02211.
Lobbying Institutional Key Players: How States Seek to

Influence the European Commission, the Council Presidency
and the European Parliament* jcms_2211 129..150
DIANA PANKE
University College Dublin
Abstract
In governance arrangements on the local, state, regional and international levels, lobbying as a
strategy to gain influence on policy outcomes via informal channels takes place. While most studies
focus on how individuals, companies, interest groups or non-governmental organizations try to exert
influence via state actors, we know much less about whether and how frequently states themselves
engage in lobbying. How effectively do state actors seek to further their own preferences informally
in lobbying institutional key actors in governance arrangements beyond the nation-state? To shed
light on these blind spots, this article draws on the example of the European Union and analyses the
conditions under which states are especially inclined to use this informal influence strategy as well
as the conditions for lobbying success. Is shows that states use lobbying strategies more often, the
more capacities they possess, the lower the transaction costs of lobbying and also the stronger their
incentives of getting active are for particular policies. Additionally, it is not only a high frequency of
lobbying that increases the chances of informally influencing policies, but also the type of reasoning
applied, its quality and its fit to the nature of the issue at stake.
Introduction
Lobbying is a prominent endeavour to informally influence policy outcomes. This
article defines ‘lobbying’ as a strategy by which lobbyists approach key decision-
making actors in order to further their own interests through transmitting information,
arguments or threats (for example, Van Schendelen, 2002; Warleigh, 2003). It takes
place in governance arrangements on the local, regional and international levels. While
most studies focus on how companies, interest groups or non-governmental organiza-
tions (NGOs) try to exert influence via state actors (for example, Dür, 2008; Green-
wood, 2003), much less is known about states as lobbyists as opposed to lobbying
addressees. Do states themselves engage in lobbying institutional key actors in nego-
tiations beyond the nation-state? Are some states more active than others and why?
Under which scope conditions can states effectively further their own preferences
through lobbying?
* This article is part of the research project ‘Small States in the European Union: Coping with Structural Disadvantages’,
which is funded by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences. I would like to thank all officials in
Member States and EU institutions who volunteered for interviews and who participated in the survey, because this article
could not have been written without their support. I would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable
comments as well as Lisa Ahles, Josè Canto, Conor Feighan, Natalie Manning, Stephen Massey, Paul Quinn and Michael
Verspohl for their research support in various stages of the project. This article has very much profited from the support
and feedback of various people. I would also like to thank participants of the ECPR, APSA and PSAI conferences in which
various bits and pieces of the project have been presented.
© 2011 The Author(s) JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main
Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
130 Diana Panke
In order to shed light on these blind spots, this article draws upon a survey conducted
among the 27 EU Member States in 2009 that maps their lobbying efforts in the day-to-
day policy-making of the European Union (EU). Some states, such as the United
Kingdom, France, Sweden and Luxembourg, are more active in lobbying the Commis-
sion, the Council Presidency and the European Parliament (EP), than Greece, Slovakia,
Poland and Romania. Furthermore, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary and Sweden rely on
lobbying strategies almost equally frequently across economic, agriculture and environ-
mental policies, whereas Germany, Italy and Belgium lobby in one of the three policy
areas under examination much more extensively. The article presents a set of capacity,
transaction-cost and incentive-based explanations, and tests them through quantitative
methods, which are complemented by qualitative insights. Subsequently, two case studies
illustrate under which scope conditions lobbying is especially conducive to influence
policies. The article concludes that states lobby EU institutional actors more often the
more financial and administrative capacities they possess and the lower the transaction
costs for applying this strategy. Also, states tend to be most active in policy areas in which
their ministries do not suffer from staff or budgetary shortcomings, and in which they have
strong incentives to invest scarce resources. Active lobbying is essential for shaping
success especially under certain scope conditions. If an issue is technical, good scientific
arguments matter most. If an issue is highly politicized, tied-hands strategies hinting at
negative domestic implications increase the chances that lobbying addressees become
responsive to lobbyists.
I. The Empirical Pattern

Lobbying is an informal pathway to influence policies in arenas or bodies in which
lobbyists themselves have no formal decision-taking competencies. Studies have shown
that this strategy is frequently used, and has effectively influenced outcomes (Dür, 2008;
Kriesi et al., 1992). States are commonly the object of lobbying efforts of sub-state and
transnational profit and non-profit actors, but they can also actively engage in lobbying.
In international negotiations, states often lobby key institutional actors, such as secre-
tariats in charge of agenda-setting or chairs of meetings (Bengtsson et al., 2004). In the
EU, states can use lobbying in addition to formal means of influence, especially since
they have no formal decision-making competencies in the consultative stage of the
European Commission, in the EP, and in trilogue meetings between the Commission,
the Council Presidency and the EP.
This section maps the lobbying activities of the 27 EU Member States in the day-
to-day negotiations of the Council of Ministers, in which the bulk of directives and
regulations are produced. A survey conducted in 2009 asked the officials of Member
States and permanent representations in Brussels participating in negotiations across
three policy areas (agriculture, environment, economy) how frequently they apply dif-
ferent strategies on average in day-to-day EU negotiations. The survey is representative
as the 338 responses (a response rate of 39 per cent) cover all three policy areas for the
ministries and permanent representatives from each of the 27 EU Member States.1 The
1
To achieve this, the surveys were circulated several times. Additionally, the non-responding ministries or sections of
permanent representatives were contacted via mail and telephone.
© 2011 The Author(s) JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Lobbying institutional key players 131
validity of the survey findings was cross-checked during interviews with Member States
and EU actors in which they were asked to group and rank states according to their
average negotiation activities.
In the EU, states can lobby the European Commission. The Commission develops
policy proposals, has access to all negotiations and participates in the trilogue meetings
with the Council Presidency and the EP at the end of the co-decision procedure. They can
also lobby the Council Presidency. The Presidency chairs the meetings, sets agendas and
represents the Council of Ministers in the trilogue meetings. Finally, states can lobby the
EP. The EP has consultative or delaying influence in other procedures.
In the survey, the national diplomats and attachés who participate in the negotiations
of the Council working parties and the Coreper (Committee of Permanent Representa-
tives) were asked how frequently they contacted each of the European actors in order to
influence them.2 Figure 1 maps the average frequency to which the Member States use
lobbying strategies vis-à-vis the Commission, the Presidency and the EP across all three
policy areas. Its scale ranges from 0 (strategy never used, corresponding to 1 in the
survey) to 100 (strategy very frequently used, corresponding to 7 in the survey) for each
of the three lobbying addressees. In order to avoid biases due to over-representation of
certain policy fields in some countries, and from activity differences between policy
fields in others, data in Figure 1 are based on policy-field averages for each lobbying
strategy of each country.
The frequency of lobbying differs significantly between states (Figure 1). States that
often lobby the Commission tend to also often lobby the Council Presidency and the EP and
vice versa. The United Kingdom, France, Spain, Finland, Denmark, Luxembourg, Sweden,
Italy and Ireland contact the three institutional actors relatively frequently, with more than
150 out of 300 activity points, while the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Latvia, Slovenia,
Portugal and Malta lobby EU actors only occasionally. At the lower end of the activity
spectrum are Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Cyprus, Poland, Greece,
Estonia and the Czech Republic (cf. Appendix Table 1). This variation is puzzling: states
should all have strong interests to further their policy preferences via informal contacts to
key institutional players, not least because EU law in the three policy areas cannot be passed
without an agreement between the Commission, the Council Presidency, and depending on
the decision-making procedure, the EP. Why do the United Kingdom, France, Spain,
Finland, Denmark and Germany lobby EU institutional actors twice as often as Lithuania,
Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Cyprus, Portugal and Greece?
By looking at the average frequency with which the Member States informally approach
institutional actors to further their own interests, we see differences in who they lobby
(Figure 1). The Presidency is approached most often (48.15 on a 0–100 scale), followed by
the Commission (45.99 percentage points), and the EP is lobbied the least (34.22 percentage
points). This phenomenon can be explained as states meet the Presidency and the Com-
mission on a day-to-day basis during the working party and Coreper negotiations in the
2
The question is purposefully broad in order to include all subtypes of lobbying activities, such as contacts face-to-face, by
email, by phone and text as well as different occasions such as corridor meetings, coffee-breaks, lunches, dinners, receptions
and also different contents such as scientific information, general background information, national concerns, constructive
policy proposals, implementation inabilities, concerns of domestic pressure groups. A separate question asked how often
state actors contacted each of the three EU actors in order to obtain background information. This activity is not regarded
as lobbying since it does not directly further a state’s interests. The response scale ranged from 1 (never) to 7 (very
frequently).
132 Diana Panke
Figure 1: Additive Frequency of Lobbying Institutional Actors

UK
FR
ES
FI
DK
DE
LU
SE
IT
IE
NL
BE
AT
LV
SI Lobbying the
Commission (0–100 scale)
PT
MT
CZ Lobbying the Presidency
(0–100 scale)
EE
GR Lobbying the European
PO Parliament (0–100 scale)
CY
SK
HU
RO
BG
LT
0 50 100 150 200 250
Source: Authors’ own survey.
Council, while the EP representatives are not present. This offers states opportunities to
lobby the Commission and the Presidency on a corridor basis or during coffee-breaks, while
such easy opportunities are lacking for the EP.3 Also, the EP is only on equal footing with
the Council of Ministers in the co-decision-making procedure, which is not applied to all
issues.4 Since the Commission and the Presidency are important institutional actors for
economic, environmental and agricultural policies, whereas the EP is only essential in a
portion of the legislative proposals, states tend to lobby the EP less often.5
While the first dependent variable captures the frequency of lobbying activities
between states, the second captures the frequency of lobbying activities on the policy-
country level. EU members do not concentrate their lobbying efforts on particular policy
fields per se, and the EU-27 average lobbying frequency varies only slightly between
3
‘Mostly we try to solve our issues in working group level because it’s easier. And you can talk to the Commission first of
all, then the Presidency and you can just talk with your neighbours. That’s usual practice’ (Interview, PermRep#22, 22 July
2008).
4
Cf. «http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cmsUpload/code_EN.pdf».
5
In addition, some of the states have not yet adjusted their working relationships with the EP to its powers under the
co-decision procedure. ‘Like I said, ten years ago when we became a member, the role of the European Parliament was
completely different. So it has changed a little bit but I’m not sure that we have changed. So that’s a challenge of which we
are fully aware but the fact is still that the work in the Council, that’s our priority’ (Interview, PermRep#14, 9 July 2008).
Moreover, some officials perceive lobbying the EP as ‘an extra burden that comes on top of a heavy professional schedule’
(Spanou, 2001, p. 163) and consequently focus on the Council (Interview, PermRep#23, 22 July 2008).
Figure 2: Average Lobbying Frequency across Policy Areas
UK
SK
SI
SE Envi
RO
PT
Eco
PO
NL
Agri
MT
LV
LU
LT
IT
IE
HU
GR
FR
FI
ES
EE
DK
DE
CZ
CY
BG
BE
AT
0.00 10.00 20.00 30.00 40.00 50.00 60.00 70.00 80.00 90.00 100.00
agricultural, economic and environmental policies. Yet, several states are more actively
approaching key EU institutional actors in some policy areas than in others (Figure 2). For
example, Belgium, Malta and Italy lobby more often in economic than in environmental
and agricultural policies, whereas France, Romania, Portugal and Ireland are most active
in the agricultural realm. Others, such as Austria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Spain,
Finland and Hungary, rely on lobbying to a similar degree in all three policy areas. How
can we explain the fact that some states lobby especially in one policy area, whereas others
are more or less equally active or inactive?
134 Diana Panke
II. Explaining Differences in Lobbying Activity

In order to address both empirical puzzles, this section develops and tests a set of
hypotheses. Generally, three components could influence the frequency of lobbying by
states: capacities, transaction costs and incentives.
Engaging in lobbying strategies is always costly and requires the investment of resources
(Berry, 1977; Hojnacki and Kimball, 1999). In order to lobby institutional actors in the EU
policy-making process, states need to know, first, what exactly they want to achieve in a
given negotiation. This requires domestic co-ordination capacities, such as a smoothly
operating ministerial bureaucracy and a high quality of policy formulation (Panke, 2010a).
Second, states need financial means to employ experts and a sufficient number of negotia-
tors with enough time for gathering expertise and maintaining contacts with stakeholders to
polish negotiation positions as well as to do the actual lobbying. States that run into capacity
shortcomings are less able to actively use lobbying strategies than states possessing many
capacities. Thus the more capacities a state possesses, the more frequently it can lobby EU
actors in order to informally push its own policy preferences (H1).
Capacities for the development of national positions are operationalized through ‘gov-
ernment effectiveness’. This measures the quality and independence of public service, the
quality of policy formulation and implementation, and the credibility of the government
to guarantee high quality on a scale of 1–100 (Kaufmann et al., 2009).6 Capacities
required to actually contact lobbying objects and disseminate a state’s positions supported
by solid reasoning are measured through the gross domestic product (GDP),7 through the
average number of staff employed in the agricultural, economic and environmental min-
istries in the 27 states between 2007 and 2009, and through the average budgets for the
same period.8
According to transaction-cost theory, costs attached to carrying out a particular task
vary with the prior investments of the actor relevant to the task (Williamson, 1985; Coase,
1937). Similarly, the activity of lobbying is not equally costly to all states and in all policy
areas. The fewer contacts a state already has to EU institutional actors, the more trans-
action costs lobbying requires. This is a result of states’ needs to invest manpower and
time into establishing contacts in the first place before they can be used to disseminate
policy ideas, preferences and background information. Additionally, states with many
contacts to the Commission, EP or the Council Presidency can lobby on multiple fronts
with greater ease and without investing many additional resources. Thus, we can expect
that the more frequently that states lobby institutional actors, the fewer are the transaction
costs attached to carrying out this strategy (H2).
Transaction costs are measured indirectly through a set of different variables. First, the
longer a state has been a member of the EU (in years), the more time delegates have to
become acquainted with people within the Commission, the EP as well as the Council
Presidency. Second, the more seats a country has in the EP, the less costly it becomes to
lobby this institution. This is due to the fact that states often have closer contacts with
‘their’ MEPs than with MEPs of other nationalities (Interviews, PermRep#54, 18 March
6
«http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/mc_countries.asp».
7
The data on GDP in 2009 US$ billion stem from «https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/
2001.html?countryName=Afghanistan&countryCode=af&regionCode=sas&#af».
8
The data on staff and budget of ministries stem from homepages, public reports and phone interviews and email exchanges
with officials in the ministries (cf. Panke, 2010b).
2009; PermRep#45, 22 January 2009). Third, the number of nationals working in the
different Directorate Generals (DGs) of the European Commission can also influence the
transaction costs involved in lobbying in the three different policy fields.9
As literature on issue salience and politicization reveals, actors might not be willing to
invest their time and resources for all policies equally (Slapin, 2008; Ringquist et al.,
2003). Since resources are always limited, states set preferences and remain especially
inclined to become active for issues of high saliency. At the same time, states are more
likely to save resources and remain inactive for issues of less importance. Thus, H3 states:
the stronger the incentives for a state to influence policy outcomes are, the more frequently
it employs lobbying strategies.
Since the availability of data on policy-sector importance is limited, this article uses
different operationalizations for different policy areas. The relative importance of agri-
cultural and economic policies is measured by the percentages to which the agricultural
sector and the industrial sector, respectively, contribute to a country’s GDP.10 While this
grasps domestic differences between policy sectors, it does not capture the relative
importance of the agricultural or the economic policy area for a country in comparison to
other states. In order to create a proxy for the importance of a policy area in a country
relative to other countries, a second measurement focuses on the GDP in billion US$
generated in the policy sectors ‘agriculture’ and ‘economy’.11 Since there are no compa-
rable data for the policy field ‘environment’, incentives of states to invest resources into
lobbying strategies in this policy area are operationalized through the number of years in
which a Green Party was in the government during the period of 2000–09.12
In order to answer the questions of why some states lobby EU actors more frequently
than others, and why variation on the policy-country level is observed, the reminder of this
section tests the importance of transaction costs, capacities and incentives. OLS regression
analysis is applied to parsimonious models in order to avoid problems with the degrees of
freedom. Additionally, this section draws upon insights from more than 100 interviews
with state and EU actors to reconstruct the underlying causal mechanisms in order to
comprehensively test the hypotheses.
The first empirical puzzle that we seek to answer is: why do states differ in the
frequency with which they lobby EU institutional actors? Due to the lack of an indicator
that captures differences in lobbying incentives between states, only the first two hypoth-
eses are tested at this point. The dependent variable of models 1–5 is the additive index
comprising the average frequency with which the three lobbying strategies are used
(0–100 scale, cf. Appendix Table 2). The dependent variable of model 6 is the ‘average
frequency with which states lobby the EP’; the dependent variable of models 7–8 is the
‘average frequency with which states lobby the Commission’.
9
The data on the nationality of employees in the different policy fields in the Commission stem from 2009, «http://
ec.europa.eu/civil_service/docs/bs_dg_nat_en.pdf».
10
The data on the percentage of GDP from the policy area ‘agriculture’ as well as the policy area ‘industry’ stem from
«https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2012.html?countryName=Afghanistan&countryCode
=af&regionCode=sas&#af».
11
The data stem from «https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2012.html?countryName=
Afghanistan&countryCode=af&regionCode=sas&#af». The variable was created by multiplying ‘% of GDP from a specific
policy area’ by ‘GDP 2009’ and the unit of the variable is ‘billion US dollars generated in the policy sector’.
12
The data on all party political compositions in the EU Member States between 2000 and 2009 have been obtained from
homepages of governments and political parties as well as from other online sources.
136 Diana Panke
In line with H1, capacities and transaction costs are important for the frequency of
lobbying (Table 1). Co-ordination capacities, measured through government effective-
ness, and capacities to gather expertise and employ sufficient staff, measured through
GDP (in billion US$), are positive and significant (models 1–8, Table 1). Interviews also
point to the strong relationship between the different capacities, and the active participa-
tion in the EU multi-level policy-making system. Effective national co-ordination that
allows for the swift development of national positions is an advantage for lobbying: ‘The
earlier one puts forward own positions and demands to the Commission, the better are the
chance to influence policies’ (Interview, PermRep#20, 21 July 2008).13 With respect to
manpower, an official stated:
Big member states [. . .] can have two or three people working on an important dossier,
while we will have only one expert. In our case then this expert has to be responsible for
writing policy papers, having lunch with the Commission civil servants, feeding in
proposals to the Commission, calling the Commission, visiting the Commission and so
on. One person has to do all of that. While if you compare big member states with more
resources, more human resources in their representation, they will have more time and
capacity to lobby also Parliament, the Commission and whatever you want. (Interview,
PermRep#13, 7 July 2008)14
In line with H2, models 1 and 2 show that the longer states have been in the EU, the
more time they have had to develop networks with EU actors (Table 1).15 This reduces the
transaction costs of lobbying, and increases the frequency with which states informally
contact EU actors in order to push their own preferences. ‘Old states have a better
network. They have people in the institutions, much more people. They have work
relations for a long time and built up contacts’ (Interview, PermRep#25, 23 July 2008).
Also as expected, states lobby more often in general and vis-à-vis the EP in particular, the
more seats they have in the EP (models 3 and 6, Table 1).16 The interviews point in the same
direction. Officials report that especially very small countries have insufficient MEPs to
cover all committees, which renders lobbying less attractive,17 while bigger states do not
report such problems (Interviews, PermRep#61, 2 April 2009; PermRep#64, 13 April 2009;
13
Similarly, ‘I always feel, if we start very early, voicing our opinion, then we get [to] talk to the Presidency and say, listen
this is important to us and talk to the Commission maybe and I think this is the way to get your voice heard’ (Interview,
PermRep#34, 27 November 2008). In line with this, another attaché reported: ‘First of all you need to know what you want.
You need to know clearly what you want and secondly you need to know how to present it to the audience, to those who
could be interested. If you do not know what you want, you will never succeed, never, it’s impossible’ (Interview,
PermRep#22, 22 July 2008; similar interviews, PermRep#30, 9 September 2008; PermRep#43, 13 January 2009;
PermRep#49, 12 February 2009).
14
Another interviewee explained: ‘Certainly they [big states] most likely do much more lobbying than small member states.
I’m sure of that. They have more resources both back in capital and in here in the representations’ (Interview, PermRep#31,
9 September 2008). Also: ‘You need resources to write papers, proposals to send in to the Commission. And you need
resources to organize meetings, lobbying meetings, in the Commission and the Parliament. Our expert will be tied up sitting
in the working group for two days a week. During these two days they cannot write papers and cannot have lunches and
meetings in the Commission of course because he or she is tied up in the meeting. While, well take for example the UK,
the expert is negotiating in the working group, while his colleague is having lunch or meeting with the Commission or
writing a paper and lobbying the UK position into the Commission as an example’ (Interview, PermRep#13, 7 July 2008).
15
The results are robust. They do not change if the continuous variable ‘duration of membership’ is transformed into a
dummy variable ‘old–new member’.
16
A model including the number of MEPs and GDP at the same time would face multicollinearity problems due to the
covariation of the independent variables. Therefore, this model is excluded.
17
For example: ‘Estonia only has six Members of Parliament and the problem is that none of them are [. . .] I cannot say
for the whole Estonia, I can only say from my side, that none of the Members of Parliament are in the committees, which,
where my dossiers go, so it is not very helpful’ (Interview, PermRep#34, 27 November 2008).
Table 1: Explaining Country Variation in the Frequency of Lobbying
Lobbying institutional key players
1 2 3 4 5 6 DV Lobby 7 DV Lobby 8 DV Lobby

EP COM COM
Capacities 0.008** 0.014*** 0.013***

(GDP, US$ billion) (0.003) (0.004) (0.004)
Capacities 0.507*** 0.784*** 0.753*** 0.655*** 0.869***
(gov. effectiveness) (0.173) (0.135) (0.181) (0.160) (0.181)
Transaction costs 0.324** 0.367***
(years – member) (0.124) (0.104)
Transaction costs 0.344*** 0.420***
(seats in EP) (0.07) (0.083)
Transaction costs -0.005 0.045* -0.004 0.043
(nationals in COM) (0.030) (0.259) (0.034) (0.026)
Constant 30.91*** -7.391 -31.17** 35.63*** -22.707 -31.21** 39.11*** -28.953*
(3.087) (13.530) (11.446) (3.220) (15.119) (13.614) (3.657) (15.135)
Observations 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27
Adjusted R2 0.53 0.57 0.68 0.39 0.42 0.60 0.30 0.49
Source: The dependent variable is from the author’s own survey; the operationalization and the sources of the independent variables are discussed in the main text.
Notes: OLS regressions with two-tailed t-tests. *** = p < 0.01; ** = p < 0.05; * = p < 0.1.
137
138 Diana Panke
PermRep#69, 25 June 2009; Ministry of Agriculture#5, 8 May 2009).18 In addition, attachés

point out that the duration of membership also influences their ability to systematically
establish relationships beyond the Council that can be used for lobbying the EP (Interviews
PermRep#17, 17 July 2008; PermRep#6, 9 May 2008; PermRep#24, 23 July 2008;
PermRep#39, 3 December 2008).
A different picture emerges for the role of the number of nationals working in the
agricultural, economic and environmental DGs for the lobbying frequency in general
(models 4–5, Table 1), and concerning the Commission (models 7–8, Table 1). The finding
is only significant in one of the four models, and not robust. In line with this interviewees
hardly mentioned size as being relevant,19 but argued that the duration of membership
affects how often states lobby the Commission.20 While contacts with MEPs reduce the
transaction costs associated with lobbying the EP, a high number of MEPs does not reduce
the costs associated with lobbying the Commission or the Council Presidency per se. Thus,
H2 is only confirmed if transaction costs are measured through the duration of membership.
States are more actively lobbying, the longer they have been in the EU, the more effective
their governance mechanisms in place and the more financial capacities they possess. This
explains why, for example, France, Germany and Denmark lobby the three EU actors more
frequently than do Lithuania, Bulgaria and Cyprus.
The second empirical puzzle relates to the variation on the policy-country level. Why
are some states more active in one policy area than another, while others lobby more or
less with equal frequency in agricultural, economic and environmental policy? In order
to systematically test the hypotheses based on their policy-field specific indicators, we
employ different data sets. The first one encompasses all Member States and all three
policy areas (N = 27*3). In this data set (model 1, Table 2), the incentive hypothesis
cannot be tested, given that country incentives are operationalized through different
indicators in the environment policy area as opposed to the economic and agricultural
fields (years of Green Party in government versus share of GDP in per cent by policy
sector). In order to test the importance of capacities, transaction costs and incentives,
three sub-sets are used covering the frequency with which states employ lobbying strat-
egies in agriculture, environmental and economic policies, respectively (N = 27 each).
Model 1 in Table 2 shows that capacities and transaction costs explain variation in
the frequency with which states use lobbying strategies in different policy areas. Govern-
ment effectiveness is important, and the budget of line ministries is also positive and
18
The number of seats in the EP correlates with the population size. Thus, a positive correlation between MEPs and
lobbying frequency of states concerning the EP could point towards an alternative causal mechanism, according to which
states with a high number of citizens have generally more capacities to lobby the EP. However, the interviews do not lend
support to this alternative explanation.
19
An interviewee regarded size as crucial, but focused on obtaining information rather than on the transaction costs of active
lobbying: ‘If you start with the Commission, we have like 100 people working for the Commission whereas a country like
Germany would have, I don’t have a clue how many people they’ve got working for the Commission. But that would mean
they’ve got somebody literally present in every DG and possibly within every unit of every DG. So you really have that
pre-emption of something from that country knowing what’s happening, whereas we don’t’ (Interview, PermRep#16, 11
July 2008).
20
Newer Member States emphasised repeatedly that they are just about to learn the rules of the game and the importance
of the Commission in EU policy-making. For example: ‘When you are new in a group, and after four years you are still
somehow new. You think that the decision-making fora is [sic] the Council and you concentrate on that. We have now
learned that it is as well very important to have contacts with the Commission and that you will be efficient. The Preparatory
stage is very important. We are trying to do as much as possible. But I must admit that in that regard Hungary and many
other member states are still not active enough’ (Interview, PermRep#6, 9 May 2008).
Table 2: Explaining Variation in the Frequency of Lobbying on the Country-Policy Level
1 2 AGRI 3 AGRI 4 AGRI 5 ECO 6 ECO 7 ECO 8 ENVI 9 ENVI 10 ENVI
Capacities 0.000 0.001 0.000 0.000

(staff of line (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
ministries)
Lobbying institutional key players
Capacities 0.000** 0.000 0.000 0.000

(budget of line (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
ministries)
Capacities 0.669*** 0.679** 0.314 0.693***
(gov. effectiveness) (0.122) (0.323) (0.218) (0.203)
Transaction costs 0.179* 0.427** 0.345* 0.353* 0.483*** 0.513*** 0.555*** 0.189 0.332** 0.327**
(duration (0.093) (0.155) (0.173) (0.172) (0.137) (0.134) (0.135) (0.125) (0.145) (0.145)
membership)
Transaction costs 0.267***
(seats in EP) (0.008)
Transaction costs -0.008*
(nationals in (0.005)
the COM)
Importance 1.822 -1.948 -0.782 -0.113 -0.130 -0.117 2.327 2.460 2.476
policy area
(1.678) (1.559) (1.310) (0.220) (0.224) (0.229) (1.472) (1.787) (1.781)
Constant -22.33** -27.411 37.89*** 36.60*** 8.782 33.70*** 32.84*** -21.400 31.71*** 31.63***
(9.797) (30.773) (7.544) (7.457) (18.655) (8.276) (8.498) (15.902) (4.300) (4.276)
Observations 81 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27
Adjusted R2 0.58 0.37 0.33 0.32 0.48 0.47 0.43 0.49 0.25 0.26
139
140
Table 2: (Continued)
11 ECO 12 ECO 13 ECO 14 AGRI 15 AGRI 16 AGRI
Capacities -0.000 0.000

(staff of line ministries) (0.000) (0.000)
Capacities 0.000 0.000
(budget of line ministries) (0.000) (0.000)
Capacities 0.368* 0.779***
(gov. effectiveness) (0.207) (0.237)
Transaction costs 0.352** 0.444*** 0.412** 0.145 0.428*** 0.435*
(duration membership) (0.150) (0.144) (0.177) (0.148) (0.151) (0.188)
Importance policy area 0.000* 0.000 0.000 0.007*** 0.003 0.002
(% sector of GDP*GDP) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.002) (0.003) (0.003)
Constant 0.112 28.71*** 28.19*** -31.36 30.23*** 31.04***
(16.290) (3.704) (4.614) (19.278) (4.831) (6.805)
Observations 27 27 27 27 27 27
Adjusted R2 0.53 0.49 0.53 0.53 0.31 0.36
Source: The dependent variable is from the author’s own survey; the operationalization and the sources of the independent variables are discussed in the main text.
Notes: OLS regression with two-tailed tests. *** = p < 0.01; ** = p < 0.05; * = p < 0.10.
Diana Panke
significant.21 However, not all transaction costs matter. While the number of nationals in the
agricultural, economic and environmental DGs of the Commission, respectively, does not
positively influence the lobby frequency of states, the duration of membership and seats in
the EP is positive and significant. In line with this, interviewees explained that having been
in the EU for some time allows the establishment of networks to EU actors in all policy areas
and that more MEPs make it easier for states to influence policies in the EP, whenever the
EP is an essential actor and regardless of which policy field is at stake.22 At the same time,
interviewees who argued that the number of nationals working in a DG of the Commission
matters emphasize that it helps to obtain information in advance, but do not mention that it
influences states’ lobbying behaviours.23 MEPs are politicians who have contacts within
their political parties and often also their respective states. In contrast, bureaucrats in the
European Commission adhere to a neutrality norm which discourages special contacts with
or preferential treatment toward their home countries (Christiansen, 1996; Hooghe, 2002).
This explains why a high number of MEPs significantly increases the frequency with which
states use lobbying strategies in general and vis-à-vis the EP in particular, whereas a high
number of nationals in a particular DG of the Commission does not have a positive effect
on the frequency of lobbying in the policy field at stake.24
Policy-specific capacities, such as the budget or the number of employees in agricul-
tural, environmental and economic ministries, positively correlate with lobbying activities
of states vis-à-vis EU institutional actors (models 2–10, Table 2). Yet this effect is not
significant. This is in line with interview evidence. Officials point out that short-staffed
ministries and insufficient budgets cause problems for active participation in the EU
(Interviews, PermRep#8, 27 May 2008; PermRep#37, 1 December 2008).25 However,
there is no deterministic relationship between increasing budgets and staff numbers, on
the one hand, and states’ abilities to actively participate in the EU, on the other. This is
because the expertise and motivation of the staff matters as well and can make small
ministries effective while rendering large ministries ineffective (Interview, PermRep#30,
9 September 2008).26 Government effectiveness as a proxy for the ability of ministries to
swiftly develop instructions for their negotiators also has a positive effect on how often
states lobby EU actors in the three policy areas. It is significant in two out of the three
models.27 Thus, we find tentative support for the capacity hypothesis: states have a
tendency to lobby more in policy areas in which their ministries do not suffer from staff
21
Whereas the number of staff employed in the ministries does positively correlate with the frequency of lobbying, but is
not significant.
22
In this vein, for example, an official explained: ‘And in the European Parliament the bigger countries have bigger [more,
sic] MEPs. So they have twice the opportunity to influence the negotiations’ (Interview, PermRep#31, 9 September 2008).
23
For example: ‘The French have very good contacts. They know exactly what the Commission is doing every time, but
they’ve got so many officials within the Commission. I’m sure certain things are told. I think they are the best, they always
know exactly what’s going on’ (Interview, PermRep#16, 11 July 2008).
24
Against this background, the individual policy-field models only include the duration of membership but not Commission
or EP contacts as a proxy for transaction costs.
25
For example: ‘Here are only two constraints: one was a lack of personnel and the other a lack of funds for going abroad.
So short trips. This is quite usual that at the end of the year we don’t have this money and representation suffers’ (Interview,
PermRep#27, 1 December 2008; similar interview, PermRep#54, 18 March 2009).
26
For example: ‘If you have people who are more motivated and with more knowledge of EU affairs, then things work
differently’ (Interview, PermRep#31, 9 September 2008).
27
It is a country- and not a policy-specific resource of domestic co-ordination processes, but because being able to swiftly
develop a national position is essential for states to engage in lobbying in the first place, it is not surprising that it also has
a significant effect on the policy-country level.
142 Diana Panke
shortages and severe budgetary constraints; also states use lobbying more often, the more
effective the domestic co-ordination of policy positions works.
H3 expects that incentives influence the decision of states to invest resources in lobbying
EU actors in the first place. The number of years in which a Green Party is in government
positively influences the prospects to lobby EU institutional actors for environmental
policies (models 8–10, Table 2). This effect, while positive and robust, remains insignifi-
cant, and interviews do not fully support the hypothesis. Some states set priorities in certain
policy areas due to governmental preferences, and are willing to heavily invest resources in
order to shape policies in prioritized areas.28 Yet many states remain more flexible with
foremost prioritization made on a per-issue basis and once a new Council Presidency
circulates its working agenda.29
The findings for the other two policy areas disconfirm H3 if incentives are operation-
alized as the domestic contribution of each of the sectors to a country’s GDP (in billion
US$) as a percentage (models 2–7, Table 2). Yet this operationalization might be better
suited to explain why a particular country is more active in one area than in another than
to account for policy-level differences between states. Agriculture contributes about 1 per
cent to Germany’s and Malta’s GDP. In absolute terms there are considerable differences
since the GDP of Germany is more than 250 times higher than that of Malta. In negotia-
tions on agricultural regulations or directives, there is consequently often more at stake for
Germany than there is for Malta or other small states with small agricultural sectors.30
Hence, the absolute importance of a sector seems to be the better proxy for the strength of
incentives to lobby in order to influence policies. Accordingly, the picture changes if
states’ incentives to become active in a policy sector are operationalized through the
financial importance of the policy sector (in billion US$) in a country.
Models 11–16 show that states tend to lobby more often, the greater the absolute
financial importance of the policy field. However, all six models are robustly positive, but
the effect is only significant in two models (11 and 14, Table 2). Many interviewees
explained that the incentives to invest resources vary on an issue-to-issue basis (Inter-
views, PermRep#49, 12 February 2009; PermRep#59, 20 March 2009; PermRep#72, 12
October 2009; PermRep#78, 28 October 2009).31 At the same time, only a few officials
reported that an entire policy area was more or less important than another area within
their state and that this correlated with their efforts to influence policies (Interviews,
PermRep#39, 3 December 2008; PermRep#6, 9 May 2008). Thus, H3 cannot be rejected
but is only tentatively confirmed. Some states have strong profiles as, for example,
environmental leaders or as agricultural strongholds, and are consequently very motivated
to live up to their reputations and actively lobby for their aims. However, in most cases the
incentives to engage in lobbying are issue- rather than policy-specific.
28
For example, environmental policies in Sweden, food safety issues in Denmark, or agriculture in France or fisheries
in Portugal (Interviews, PermRep#3, 10 April 2008; PermRep#36, 1 December 2008; PermRep#54, 18 March 2009;
PermRep#78, 28 October 2009; Ministry of Agriculture#6, 25 September 2009).
29
For example: ‘Prioritization takes place, always done in the tact of the presidencies. We have a priority list of “very
important, important and average” from the very start. We do it according to the presidency because then we are knowing
what is coming to the Council meetings. So this is where the thinking about our priorities starts’ (Interview, PermRep#7,
26 May 2008).
30
Similarly: ‘For the big state, the stakes are very often higher than for us. They pay more money so they are more, if you
like, ready to see the economic repercussions than a smaller state’ (Interview, PermRep#45, 22 January 2009).
31
For example: ‘I think that we try – if we have the time and the resources – and if a file has political importance then we
try to work with Parliament as well’ (Interview, PermRep#58, 19 March 2009).
In short, policy-country variation in the frequency to which the Member States lobby
EU actors can be accounted for by capacity differences between states and to some
extent also between policy areas, by transaction-cost differences between states, and
only to a limited extent, by varying incentives of states to become active in different
policy areas.32
III. The Success of Lobbying Activities

Since lobbying is a communicative exercise by nature, lobbyists need to convey reasons
to lobbying addressees so that the latter support their positions. In general, the more
frequently states lobby EU actors, the more likely at least some of the reasons put forward
will be persuasive.33 While lobbying is a prominent strategy, and while studies have
generally shown that the frequency of lobbying matters (Gray et al., 2005; Lowery and
Brasher, 2006; Nownes, 1999), it is not entirely understood when this strategy is most
effective. In order to shed some light on the scope conditions under which different
reasons conveyed in lobbying are persuasive, this section draws on insights from two
case studies (spirit drinks regulation and pesticide packaging).34 Both negotiations took
place recently and were framed as agricultural matters, but were decided through the
co-decision procedure with the EP as an important co-legislator. Whereas the pesticides
case was highly technical and exemplifies the importance of scientific arguments, the
spirit drinks regulation was very political in character and illustrates the role of tied-hands
claims (Putnam, 1988).35
In July 2006, the Commission proposed a pesticide package (Commission, 2006, p.
24). More than a hundred issues were at stake (Interview, Ministry Agriculture#10, 6
January 2010). Among them, the actors disagreed over how to determine the cut-off
criteria for active substances (which kill microorganisms and are thus harmful to public
health and the environment) in pesticides. There are essentially two approaches: a very
cautious hazard-based approach and a somewhat laxer risk-based approach.36 The United
Kingdom extensively lobbied the Commission in order to promote a risk-based approach
(Interviews, PermRep#64, 13 May 2009; PermRep#71, 8 October 2009). Trying to per-
suade the Commission of the inferiority of the hazard-based approach, the delegates
offered the following analogy:
We asserted that the hazard based approach, you know, there are far more hazardous
things in normal use like alcohol and tobacco than many pesticides, so we used that as an
absurd example. But if you say because something looks like a dangerous chemical and
it has a theoretically hazardous property, inherently hazardous property and you can’t ever
32
The models in Table 2 account for 25–53 per cent of the observed variation.
33
By contrast: ‘If you do nothing, you can’t hope the Commission or the President will take over of your comments. That’s
a prerequisite. You have to do something’ (Interview, PermRep#49, 12 February 2009).
34
Due to reasons of space, this article cannot reconstruct the complete negotiation dynamics. For the complete case studies,
cf. Panke (2010b).
35
For reasons of space, this article only focuses on lobbying of states vis-à-vis the Commission. In both negotiations, states
also actively lobbied the EP and the different Council Presidencies – with varying success (for the complete case studies,
cf. Panke, 2010b).
36
A hazard-based approach would prohibit substances if they posed a danger to the environment or human health, no matter
how small or great the danger. A risk-based approach weighs risks and benefits and tends to be more generous in allowing
substances to be used.
144 Diana Panke
use it, is an absurd position because there are plenty of other things that the state allows
which have an inherent hazard like electricity. (Interview, PermRep#64, 13 May 2009)
However, the Commission was not receptive of these general claims. This is not surprising
as the nature of the issue was technical in character and called for scientific arguments on
causal relationships between active substances and environmental and public health
dangers (Interview, PermRep#64, 13 May 2009).
Unlike the United Kingdom, Sweden effectively lobbied the Commission. The
Swedish delegation worked closely with its chemical agency (KEMI), which provided
comprehensive and scientifically up-to-date impact assessment reports (Interviews,
PermRep#59, 20 March 2009; PermRep#72, 12 October 2009). On this basis, Sweden
made scientifically grounded arguments in favour of a hazard-based approach that reso-
nated well with the Commission because it fitted the technical nature of the issue and
clearly related to public health and environmental protection, rather than focusing on
economic and financial implications. In its lobbying efforts, Sweden also provided the
Commission with arguments against the concerns of states that would have opted for a less
demanding approach (Interview, PermRep#59, 20 March 2009).37
In December 2005, the European Commission proposed to revise the regulation on
spirit drinks from 1989 (Commission, 2005). The most controversial part related to the
definition of ‘vodka’, which had not been included previously. While the United Kingdom
and France opted for the inclusion of a broad variety of ingredients including potatoes,
cereals, sugar beets, sugar cane, molasses, grapes and citrus fruit, Poland and the Baltic
States wanted a definition that allows for the use of cereals and potatoes only. In order to
push their positions, states from both camps lobbied extensively.
Lobbying the Commission started in the early consultation stage, in which the Com-
mission, Baltic delegations and Poland preferred a narrow potato- and cereal-based
definition (Interviews, PermRep#60, 30 March 2009; COM#5, 19 October 2009).
However, shortly before the Commission submitted the legislative proposal to the Council
and the EP, the United Kingdom and France became active lobbyists. Since they do not
produce vodka out of cereals and potatoes, they used informal contacts to the Commission
to push for a broader definition. They reasoned that they would be unable to vote in favour
of the Commission’s legislative proposal since there would not be enough domestic
support for a legislative act that would bankrupt French and British vodka companies. The
Commission believed that a narrow definition would have hampered the chances to revise
the spirit drinks regulation altogether (Interview, COM#5, 19 October 2009). It responded
to United Kingdom and French lobbying efforts, and opted in its policy proposal for a very
broad definition of vodka, as being produced out of ethyl alcohol of agricultural origin
(Interviews, COM#5, 19 October 2009; Organized interests#1, 2 March 2009; MEP#3, 17
April 2009).38
Next to the frequency of lobbying, the above examples illustrated that the content of
the messages matters as well for the prospects of influencing institutional actors. Effective
37
While Sweden also successfully lobbied the EP on the basis of its up-to-date scientific arguments (Interviews, Perm-
Rep#59, 20 March 2009; PermRep#72, 12 October 2009), the United Kingdom was also unsuccessful in this respect due
to the low resonance of its arguments with the lead committee: ‘I think with hindsight we would say that we failed very
badly in briefing the Parliament, in lobbying the Parliament about our concerns’ (Interview, PermRep#64, 13 May 2009).
38
For the complete negotiation dynamics, cf. Panke (2010b).
lobbying requires that lobbyists persuade the lobbying addressees to take a particular
position into account. To this end, activists can use two types of reasoning. They can pass
on either scientific expertise, or information on implications different policy choices have
on the ground. The former can be intersubjectively verified within an epistemic commu-
nity, while claims related to domestic constraints (‘tied-hands’) are hardly verifiable by
anyone other than the lobbying subject. Thus, for non-politicized technical issues, lobby-
ing efforts based on expertise are effective if the quality of arguments is high and up
to scientific standards. Likewise, for highly politicized issues, lobbying based on sub-
jective reasons is effective if the lobbyist is regarded as credible, and if the implications
attached to specific policy options have consequences for the preferences of lobbying
addressees.
Conclusions
Lobbying takes place in governance arrangements on the local, state, regional and inter-
national levels. It is an informal strategy to gain influence on policy outcomes via
contacting key decision-making actors and disseminating reasons to make them support
one’s own interests. To shed light on whether and how often states engage in lobbying, this
article has analysed the conditions under which states are especially inclined to use this
strategy within day-to-day EU negotiations. This revealed that there is considerable
variation in the frequency with which states lobby the three European institutional actors.
First, the Commission and the Presidency are lobbied more often than the EP. This is
primarily due to a transaction-cost effect: unlike the Commission and the Presidency, the
EP is not attending Council negotiations. Thus, the greater are the opportunities for
lobbying, the more often this strategy is used. Moreover, the EP is only an essential
institutional actor under co-decision, and many states have not yet adapted to the increasing
powers of the EP.
Second, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Finland, Denmark, Luxembourg,
Sweden, Italy and Ireland contact the three institutional actors approximately twice as
frequently as do Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, the Slovak Republic, Cyprus,
Poland, Greece, Estonia and the Czech Republic. This is puzzling since all states would
profit from lobbying, especially since they have no formal access and no formal power in
the consultative stage of the Commission, in the EP and in trilogue meetings. States with
effective administrations that can swiftly produce national positions, which is essential for
getting active in lobbying in the first place, as well as states that have been in the EU for
a long time, are lobbying EU institutional actors most often. Size matters as well as large
states tend to lobby EU actors more often in general. However, this does not offer
advantages for large states in lobbying the Commission because of a neutrality-norm in
the Commission’s bureaucracy.
Third, there is variation on the policy-country level. For example, Belgium, Malta and
Greece lobby in the economic policy area considerably more often than they do in
environmental and agricultural policies, whereas Austria, Spain, Finland, Hungary,
Lithuania and Slovakia rely on lobbying to a similar degree in the three policy areas. The
policy-country variation can also be explained by a capacity and transaction-cost model.
In addition, states tend to be most active in policy areas in which their ministries do not
suffer from staff or budgetary shortcomings, and in which they achieve the most financial
146 Diana Panke
gains or in which the country’s profile is most pronounced. Thus, lobbying is not equally
costly to all states in all areas.
Although lobbying is only one of a series of negotiation strategies through which states
can influence policies, the active usage of lobbying is important as the frequency of
lobbying activities increases the overall chances for success. Yet we do not know much
about scope conditions under which lobbying activity translates into lobbying success.
While further research is needed in this respect, this article has presented two illustrative
studies that suggest that lobbying is more successful the better the quality of arguments
and the better their resonance with the nature of the issue.
Correspondence:
Diana Panke
Associate Professor
School of Politics and International Relations
University College Dublin
Dublin 4
Ireland
email diana.panke@ucd.ie
Appendix Table 1: Lobbying Activities, Country Averages (0–100 Scale)
Member State COM lobbying Presidency lobbying EP lobbying Average lobbying
LT 24.00 23.50 17.00 21.50

BG 28.83 27.00 20.17 25.33
RO 25.50 27.17 23.33 25.33
HU 25.67 35.17 18.83 26.56
SK 33.00 31.50 15.50 26.67
CY 30.50 35.33 18.17 28.00
PO 38.17 34.67 20.83 31.22
GR 27.83 38.17 27.83 31.28
EE 37.50 44.50 15.33 32.44
CZ 29.67 34.67 33.33 32.56
MT 36.67 42.67 20.33 33.22
PT 36.17 38.00 26.67 33.61
SI 38.00 45.33 20.33 34.56
LV 37.00 41.17 30.17 36.11
AT 46.67 43.83 32.67 41.06
BE 48.83 51.83 28.83 43.17
NL 57.83 53.17 38.83 49.94
IE 59.50 66.17 33.67 53.11
IT 52.83 63.83 45.83 54.17
SE 57.83 61.67 43.33 54.28
LU 67.67 58.33 39.83 55.28
DE 63.83 62.00 46.33 57.39
DK 63.33 61.17 52.50 59.00
FI 62.50 66.00 49.17 59.22
ES 61.67 66.33 55.50 61.17
FR 63.83 65.67 68.50 66.00
UK 86.83 81.33 81.00 83.06
148
Appendix Table 2: Independent Variables

Member GDP Government Duration EU MEPs Nationals Average staff Average budget Agriculture Industry Green Party
State (US$ billions) effectiveness membership in COM in line ministries in line ministries (€) % of GDP % of GDP in government
AT 323.00 94.00 14.00 17.00 44.00 679.00 2,744,435,167.00 2.00 32.00 0.00
BE 381.00 89.00 57.00 22.00 441.00 1,020.67 219,980,666.70 1.00 25.00 0.00
BG 91.00 58.00 2.00 17.00 27.00 1,100.67 145,030,218.80 8.00 28.00 0.00
CY 23.00 85.00 5.00 6.00 10.00 1,855.00 63,906,800.00 2.00 19.00 0.00
CZ 257.00 83.00 5.00 22.00 31.00 730.33 985,968,115.90 3.00 35.00 3.00
DE 2812.00 93.00 57.00 99.00 158.00 1,726.67 4,061,850,333.00 1.00 27.00 5.00
DK 199.00 100.00 36.00 13.00 47.00 2,869.00 255,745,803.50 1.00 26.00 0.00
EE 24.00 84.00 5.00 6.00 14.00 239.00 306,447,690.20 3.00 24.00 0.00
ES 1367.00 80.00 23.00 50.00 138.00 21,776.00 2,330,481,667.00 3.00 27.00 0.00
FI 183.00 98.00 14.00 13.00 37.00 482.33 1,828,716,667.00 3.00 31.00 0.00
FR 2113.00 90.00 57.00 72.00 169.00 60,666.67 22,691,000,000.00 2.00 19.00 2.00
GR 339.00 71.00 28.00 22.00 85.00 900.00 799,177,833.30 3.00 21.00 0.00
HU 186.00 73.00 5.00 22.00 65.00 393.67 1,542,339,731.00 3.00 34.00 0.00
IE 177.00 92.00 36.00 12.00 47.00 5,585.00 1,272,998,000.00 5.00 46.00 2.00
IT 1756.00 66.00 57.00 72.00 194.00 2,193.33 91,919,165,000.00 2.00 25.00 3.00
LT 53.00 72.00 5.00 12.00 29.00 286.67 318,041,203.30 5.00 33.00 0.00
LU 38.00 92.00 57.00 6.00 7.00 173.00 68,061,821.50 0.00 14.00 0.00
LV 32.00 70.00 5.00 8.00 11.00 237.33 180,711,923.00 4.00 24.00 4.00
MT 10.00 86.00 5.00 5.00 8.00 1,198.67 20,064,166.67 1.00 18.00 0.00
NL 652.00 96.00 57.00 25.00 70.00 3,283.33 1,428,160,333.00 2.00 24.00 0.00
PO 686.00 68.00 5.00 50.00 142.00 823.67 1,235,985,168.00 5.00 28.00 0.00
PT 232.00 82.00 23.00 22.00 44.00 2,995.33 1,125,100,000.00 3.00 24.00 0.00
RO 256.00 50.00 2.00 33.00 43.00 618.33 4,586,705,167.00 12.00 35.00 0.00
SE 333.00 99.00 14.00 18.00 49.00 200.00 831,262,587.30 2.00 27.00 5.00
SI 56.00 83.00 5.00 7.00 23.00 2,552.00 2,936,574,369.00 2.00 31.00 0.00
SK 115.00 77.00 5.00 13.00 33.00 458.33 4,834,605.53 8.00 80.00 0.00
UK 2165.00 94.00 36.00 72.00 99.00 1,333.33 2,180,789,610.00 1.00 24.00 0.00
Source: For the operationalization and the sources of the independent variables see the main text.
Diana Panke
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Lobbying Institutional Key Players: How States Seek To Influence The European Commission, The Council Presidency and The European Parliament

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Lobbying Institutional Key Players: How States Seek To Influence The European Commission, The Council Presidency and The European Parliament

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JCMS 2012 Volume 50. Number 1. pp. 129–150 DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-5965.2011.02211.

Lobbying Institutional Key Players: How States Seek to

I. The Empirical Pattern

Figure 1: Additive Frequency of Lobbying Institutional Actors

0 50 100 150 200 250

Source: Authors’ own survey.

Source: Authors’ own survey.

II. Explaining Differences in Lobbying Activity

1 2 3 4 5 6 DV Lobby 7 DV Lobby 8 DV Lobby

Capacities 0.008 0.014* 0.013***

PermRep#69, 25 June 2009; Ministry of Agriculture#5, 8 May 2009).18 In addition, attachés

Capacities 0.000 0.001 0.000 0.000

Capacities 0.000** 0.000 0.000 0.000

Capacities -0.000 0.000

III. The Success of Lobbying Activities

LT 24.00 23.50 17.00 21.50

Appendix Table 2: Independent Variables

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