Lobbying in the European Union

This paper surveys the history of European Lobbying and recent empirical studies on current practice. It presents some key results on the structure, methods and strategies of professional interest representation in Brussels. The briefing also comments on the European Commission's European Transparency Initiative, underlining the need to create a single mandatory registry at the Commission and the European Parliament. An inter-institutional approach would reduce the opportunities for lobbyists to venue-shop and increase the exclusion costs of misinformation.

The author of the report is Dr David Coen, School of Public Policy, University College London, London WC1, UK