Interest Groups and the Brussels Bureaucracy

Abstract

Abstract The chapter first discusses the logic of lobbying of the European Commission by interest groups. The rest of the discussion is divided into three parts. The first section highlights the organizational and cultural characteristics of the Commission bureaucracy and the implications of these characteristics for groups seeking to develop effective lobbying strategies. The second section examines in detail recent attempts by the Commission to structure and institutionalize interest group consultation; this analysis highlights the increasing importance of both ‘thin’ and ‘thick’ consultative structures. The concluding section briefly considers the utility and limitations of group pluralism within the Commission and asks whether the neo–functionalist predictions have, in the event, turned out to be surprisingly accurate.