European lobbies have a reputation for spending their time trying to influence political decisions. However, a detailed study of the European Union of Crafts and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises reveals the multiplicity of their activities.
What do lobbies do when they are not busy influencing the decision-making process? This is the question addressed by Marc Milet, lecturer in political science at the Université Panthéon Assas (Paris II). The author starts from the observation that the vast majority of political science studies are only interested in interest groups from the angle of their participation in decision-making at the European level. As a result, researchers have mainly focused on the question of measuring this influence and the means used by these groups to achieve their objectives, in particular through analyses of action repertoires. The central thesis of the work is that this research omits a large part of what constitutes the reality of European interest groups. The idea is thus to be interested in the organization for itself, by observing and analyzing the different activities that are practiced there.
To develop his thesis, Marc Milet draws on the monograph of a particular European interest group: the European Union of Crafts and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (UEAPME). This association, created in 1979, aims to defend the interests of crafts and small and medium-sized enterprises at European level. As such, it is one of the European social partners (alongside Business Europe and the European Trade Union Confederation in particular), and therefore takes part in decisions relating to European social dialogue.
Multiple action logics
Based on the case of theUEAPMEMarc Milet shows that we can distinguish four logics which allow us to classify the types of activities practiced by European lobbies. The first, classic, is that of the logic of influence, which refers to activities aimed at influencing European decisions, and which are widely documented in the classic literature on interest groups.
The second category is that of the maintenance logicwhich designates all activities aimed at preserving the place of theUEAPME within the system of representation formed with the other European interest groups.UEAPME was indeed led, from the mid-1990s, to fight to obtain a place as a social partner within the European social dialogue. One of the challenges was then to ensure the unity of the representation of SME. In this context, participation in the European social dialogue is considered particularly important, since it allows the organisations involved to actively participate in the decision-making process in the field of social policies. Article 155 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union provides that the social partners have the possibility to launch negotiations and reach an agreement on any matter falling within their remit and within the competence of the European Union.
The third logic, the so-called promotionrefers to the activities through which the European interest group seeks to make itself known, outside of any participation in a specific decision-making process. This is, according to the author, the case with regard to the investment of theUEAPME to the European Economic and Social Committee (CESE). Since this is a consultative assembly, its main activity is to issue non-binding opinions. Marc Milet thus shows that the interest in taking steps with this institution can only lie in the desire to make the organization known, since by definition it has relatively little weight in the decision-making process.
Finally, the relay logic is interested in activities that transform theUEAPME into a vector of Europe, that is to say an agent participating in the diffusion of European values and thereby in the legitimation of this level of government. Among this type of activity, Marc Milet lists for example the actions of diffusion of European information by theUEAPME to its members, information sometimes directly borrowed from the European Commission or conveying messages of support for European construction. The author also classifies among these activities active participation in European projects and support for the organization in the implementation of European public policies.
Navigating by sight in European space
In addition to this new typology of the activities of European interest groups proposed by the author, one of the central objectives of the work concerns the questioning of the rationalist point of view usually taken on the activities of lobbies. This reading prism tends to present lobbyists as having coherent interests and strategies when it comes to exercising their activity at the European level. Marc Milet shows, thanks to a return to history, that this vision is particularly reductive. The institutionalization of theUEAPME rather, it is a matter of uncertainty and is conditioned by many external elements beyond the control of its members. Thus, the organization was primarily built on the model of the transnational friendly society, well before becoming an organization with an exclusively European aim.
The history of theUEAPME therefore actually begins with the creation, in 1947, of the International Union of Crafts and SME (UIAPME), which is mainly based on the organization of two large “masses” per year, without a well-established objective. At that time, the member organizations were rather disinvested from the process, which continued until the 1990s. Then came the slow institutional structuring, with first the formation of an office within theUIAPME specializing in European issues (UACEE), which would later lead to the organization UEAPME as we know it today. The evolution of the motivations of the actors and the objectives of the organization over time show that we cannot analyze the institutionalization of interest groups with a theory postulating fixed preferences and actors calculating their strategy.
Analysis of the motivations of theUEAPME are also a way for the author to take the opposite view of rationalist theses. While the latter postulate the existence of a strong interest in engagement in a process of influence at the European level, Marc Milet shows on the contrary that this is built over time from sometimes very national considerations. For example, in France, the Union Professionnelle Artisanale (UPA) developed a policy of transition to Europe in the 1990s in order to rise and stabilise its position as the third largest employers’ organisation at national level. Thus, the argument for its participation in European activities via theUEAPME allows at this time to differentiate theUPA of its competitors in the representation of SME.
Beyond the European decision: internal issues
While the classic literature on interest groups focuses on their role in decision-making, Marc Milet’s work highlights the many issues and power struggles that the interest group itself can be subject to, internally. Thus, the question of the formulation of interests is approached from an identity angle, which reveals deep conflicts between the different members of the group. UEAPMEMarc Milet thus notes three moments of tension, during which the place of craftsmanship diminishes more and more in favor of the larger ones. SME. The last one, in 2010, clearly reveals an identity of employers of the interest group, while its initial vocation was rather to represent independents. Marc Milet analyses this identity change as a result of the Europeanization of theUEAPME. Thus, the excessive disparities between national craft industries, as well as entry into European social dialogue, would have favoured the construction of this identity of employers to the detriment of that of the self-employed.
Finally, still with the aim of better understanding the internal issues atUEAPMEMarc Milet shows us how the European environment also affects the structuring of the group. He shows, for example, that during debates aimed at modifying internal voting processes, one of the models discussed was none other than that of the institutional reform resulting from the Treaty of Nice (weighting of votes according to the number of countries). Similarly, entry into the European social dialogue has partly transformed the functioning of the organization, which has had to adapt to new organizational constraints.
Marc Milet thus sheds a whole new light on lobbying activities at the European level, and reading his work will allow the reader to renew his conception of this category of actors, which is nevertheless loaded with representations. A point of clarification can however be brought to the title of the book, since the criticism in this case essentially targets the theoretical perspectives that the author considers to be dominant, and does not seek to denounce the economic forces at work in Brussels. The richness, precision and variety of the empirical sources mobilized thus make it possible to grasp as closely as possible the reality of an interest group now located at the heart of European social dialogue, theUEAPME.