Belousov Alexander
Abstract: The article examines corporations and non-governmental organizations’ lobbying for public and private interests in the European Union. NGOs often lobby for public interests – consumer interests, environmental protection sphere interests, community interests (e.g. women's interests). Corporations prefer to lobby for private interests – industry interests, professional interests, private company interests. It often happens that they compete in lobbying for their interests, which leads to lobbying battles such as confrontation over reform of chemical industry (REACH reform). The European Union funds NGOs, and it helps them to be independent. As a part of ‘checks and balances’ system in the European decision-making process, it creates a competitive environment for lobbying. As a result, deputies of the European Parliament and representatives of the European Commission prefer to deal with NGOs; on the other hand, members of the Council of the European Union prefer to deal with corporations. In 2005, lobbying effectiveness of NGOs and corporations was assessed as equivalent. By 2009, the situation has changed: corporations raised the effectiveness of lobbying, and now they are ahead of NGOs in many areas, with the exclusion of consumer products, food and beverages. Thus, NGOs are no longer able to compete with corporations in several industries such as energy, medicine and pharmaceutical industry.
Keywords: lobbying, European Union, European Commission, European Parliament, NGO, corporation, public interest, private interest.