Climate Policy for Sale? Interest Group Mobilization and Success in EU Climate Policy

Recently, hundreds of thousands of people across Europe have been taking the streets, calling for tough measures against climate change. At the same time, numerous business groups are lobbying in Brussels for climate policy with a lighter touch. Little is known about which organizations are lobbying against stricter climate policy and even less about whether and when these organizations are successful. This paper seeks to address this lacuna by asking which groups lobby on EU climate policies and under which circumstances these groups achieve their policy goals. We expect that both political and financial resources are important for groups to mobilize and attain their preferences. To test our hypotheses, we focus on six EU climate policy issues for which we conducted 17 expert surveys with lobbyists and a content analysis of 737 media statements in eight European news outlets. The data reveal that interest groups are among the largest political forces opposing more stringent climate policies. Our results show that political resources, such as media attention and coalitions, are not decisive for lobbying success. What matters for being successful in EU climate policies are the financial resources that lobby groups have to their disposal. These findings paint a pessimistic picture of lobbyists in Brussels exchanging policy expertise for favorable EU climate policies.