Tough times for trade associations

Date: 10/01/02

By Peter Chapman

TRADE associations face a struggle if they want to influence EU policy makers, according to a new book.

British professor Justin Greenwood, author of Inside the Trade Associations, reaches this gloomy conclusion after interviewing 50 directors-general of EU trade groups and 150 members and non-members between autumn 1998 and spring 2001. He says political fragmentation of the Union means companies have lots of opportunities to lobby politicians and officials - bypassing trade associations. Greenwood argues some lobby groups also lose out on 'representivity' because a few big firms dominate them.

He also says that lobby groups suffer because the EU cannot licence certain groups as 'official and principal partners' - a tradition in corporatist Germany, Austria and Sweden. The result is that most business associations become just one of a number of channels of representation to political powerbrokers - and tend to organise themselves around very narrow common interests.

'This helps to explain the presence of hundreds of highly specialist associations, such as the 'natural sausage casing manufacturers association', says Greenwood, a professor at Aberdeen's Robert Gordon University.

He adds that EU competition law - which bans cartels - lets official trade associations do far less for their members than in the past.

• Inside the Trade Associations published by Palgrave: http://www.palgrave.com

Report of a new book, 'Inside the Trade Associations', by Justin Greenwood, published by Palgrave.