Le lobbying – forgotten victim of a revolution

Date: 22/09/05

Across the Atlantic, it's an accepted part of US business practice, enshrined in the 1791 Bill of Rights. But after more than 200 years of neglect, French companies are re-learning the art of lobbying - a vital skill in Europe's corridors of power, writes Will Bland

Historically, French civil servants and politicians have tried to serve the general good and to protect it from competing private interests.

By contrast, American congressmen who ignore special-interest groups violate their country's cherished constitution.

The practice of lobbying in the US claims a respectable parentage. The 1791 Bill of Rights included the First Amendment, which enshrined the people's right to "petition the government for a redress of grievances".

This right is so important to companies, labour unions and special-interest groups that in 1999 they spent $1.45 billion making sure that it was fully exercised.

In the very same year that Americans protected lobbying in their constitution, the revolutionaries in France outlawed it. This mistrust of special interest groups is still shared by their descendants today.

The French approach lobbying in a slightly different way from their Anglo-Saxon cousins. Americans accuse the French of being aloof; the French accuse the Americans of being corrupt.

It is perhaps natural that lobbying should be more pervasive in the US than France. The US has five times the population and covers an area 14 times greater. Individuals in California and Alaska who favour gun-ownership need, so the argument goes, an organisation to represent their cause in Washington.

By contrast, the French state is notorious for the power it places in the hands of a very small elite. This elite is equipped to govern the country without input from self-interested parties.

France's critics argue that if the country has functioned without corporate lobby groups it is because the chief executives of French companies do not need to employ intermediaries to deal with lawmakers. Almost all leading politicians and businessmen attended one of half a dozen engineering, business or administrative colleges.

Stéphane Desselas attended one such college. He now runs Athenora, a lobbying consultancy in Brussels. In May this year he staged a conference for French executives, entitled 'The French in Brussels: professionals lobbying openly'. As France's influence at the EU negotiating table has diminished following the enlargement of the Union, perhaps the French are beginning to understand the importance of lobbying.

Desselas says that French firms are only now facing up to the decision-making process in Brussels. Chief executives cannot appeal directly to a commissioner's chef de cabinet when they discover a piece of legislation that might adversely affect their firm.

Such a technique might work in France, where the chef de cabinet can make changes to the bill, but in Brussels companies need to convince a number of parties, including those MEPs drafting the European Parliament's opinion. It is unlikely that the French chief executives will have gone to university with Polish MEPs or Slovakian civil servants, so they are turning to lobbyists to make sure that their interests are taken into consideration.

Desselas believes that American lobbyists, too, have had to adapt. Lobbying in Brussels and lobbying in Washington are different businesses. When they first began to lobby in Brussels, US firms adopted aggressive approaches. They would threaten, for instance, to reallocate jobs outside the Union.

It soon became clear to US firms that these tactics would not work in the European climate. Firms began to employ European lobby firms to represent their interests instead of American ones. American lobbying firms have sought to acquire existing European firms instead of setting up offices of their own.

To some extent the situation in Brussels represents a compromise between the French and American approaches. Desselas argues that decision-makers in Brussels still believe in the French notion of the general good and do not respond to 'push-button lobbying' where lobby groups exercise direct influence over lawmakers.

Ronald Asmus of the German Marshall Fund has dealt with lobby groups in the US and Europe. In his opinion, one of the key differences between lobbying in the US and EU lobbying is that lawmakers in Brussels lack accountability.

Washington groups can flex their muscles in front of politicians in a way that their European counterparts cannot. Washington lobbyists can confront congressmen with figures and threats such as 'farming accounts for one in five jobs in your constituency'. This type of statistic has less influence over MEPs and in any case MEPs have less impact over policy than congressmen.

Washington groups can also influence congressmen by helping to finance the campaigns of candidates who represent their interests. Their counterparts in Brussels cannot control commissioners or ministers in this way.

Lobbying in Brussels is more discreet and informal than in Washington. Alexander Stubb, a Finnish MEP, who has written a study of lobbying in the two cities, points out that the EU's institutions have much less information available to them than their equivalents in Washington. One Commission official, speaking in 1997, complained that he had nine staff to deal with 44 directives and 89 regulations whereas the corresponding unit in the US had 600 people.

The European Parliament has nothing to compare to the Congressional Research Service.

Alfons Westgeest is the managing partner of Kellen Europe, a US lobbying firm that took over a European operation. He forecasts a change in the way groups function in Brussels. In Washington, there is a clear distinction between legislative and regulatory lobbying.

Legislative lobbyists negotiate with congressmen whereas regulatory lobbyists develop relationships with the bodies that draw up and enforce laws. In Brussels, until recently, lobbyists have not separated these two activities.

If lobbyists can influence regulatory bodies they do not need to become embroiled in the messy, politicised process of legislative lobbying.

There is one further major difference between lobbying Brussels and Washington. With no common language and no common media, Europe will never be as fertile a plain as the US for grassroots lobbying. European lawmakers, unlike their American counterparts, see mass emailing campaigns merely as an irritation.

The European Union, it would seem, has other ways of redressing its citizens' grievances.

Analysis feature comparing traditions of lobbying in France and the United States