The Impact of EU Funding on Interest Group Access

Is the European Union (EU) funding of interest groups an opportunity or a danger to their political participation? Previous research has raised the question of the interrelatedness between access to policy-makers and EU funding of interest groups’ activities (Wolff 2013, Sanchez Salgado 2014). Many scholars and observers argue that funding opportunities restricts the access of interest groups to policy-making. Public funds would endanger interest group’s autonomy inhibiting their access to public officials (Mosley 2012). Other authors argue that public funding can open access opportunities since they can contribute to active involvement on the policy process (Khaldoun 2014). In this article, we contribute to clarify this ongoing academic debate using new data collected from a survey of more than 4000 organisations active in Europe. We investigate interest groups' activities at the EU, national and local level and find consistent relationships between access to government institutions and funding with relevant variations across levels of analysis. The study will provide a comprehensive analysis of the mechanisms concerning government funding at different levels of governance and draw larger economic and social implications for the literature on interest groups and public policy.