The influence of interest groups on greening the skies
Bringing aviation in the EU Emissions Trading System
Valeria Majori, 363047
Word Count: 27.459
Rotterdam, July 2012
M.Sc. International Public Management and Policy (IMP)
Faculty of Social Sciences
Erasmus University Rotterdam
1st Supervisor:Prof. Markus Haverland
2nd Supervisor: Dr. Harry Daemen
Abstract
This study investigates diverse theories that explain the influence of interest groups in a particular case concerned with the EU climate change policy. Three theories under examination are: access goods theory, structural characteristics theory and issue characteristics theory. The aim is to show that the newer theory of issue characteristics should not be underestimated along the more established two other theories. This research investigates in an in-depth case study which of these theories better explains the influence of two interest groups in the case of bringing aviation in the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS). The two groups under examination are: European Regional Airlines (ERA) representing the aviation sector and Transport and Environment Federation (T & E) representing environmental interests. The research design applied to this case study is congruence analysis which tests theoretically derived predictions with empirical data, and establishes which theory has a better explanatory power. In addition, for the purpose of this research this design is combined with a method of process-tracing in order to measure interest group influence, and to trace the whole chain of lobbying activities. The study finds that both, structural characteristics and issue characteristics theory better explain the influence of interest groups rather than access goods theory. The conclusion is that while the well-established theory of access goods should not be taken for granted when examining interest group influence, there is a need for further research for testing the newer theory of issue characteristics. It would be crucial for the future research to test this theory in multiple cases as this study considers it applied to only one case, and therefore one of the limitations is that the findings cannot be generalized.
Key words: interest group representation; lobbying; influence; congruence analysis; process tracing; climate change; the EU Emissions Trading System.
Acknowledgements
First of all, I would like to thank my professor Markus Haverland, for his valuable and constructive comments throughout the writing process which helped me to improve the quality of my research, and inspired me to meet the final deadline in time. I am also thankful to Dr. Harry Daemen who was willing to be the co-reader of this research study. In addition, I would like to thank my master thesis circle colleagues: Lisa Poot and DebolinaSarkar. It was a pleasure to work with them both during the past months and I would like to thank them for all of the valuable and critical comments, and also for their support.
Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to the interviewees:Mr. Leonardo Massetti from European Regional Airlines and Association, and Mr. Bill Hemmings from Transport & Environment Federation. Also, I would like to thank two other interviewees: Ms.Cait Hewitt from European Aviation Federation and Dr.Manfred Treber from German Watch. These interviews were a crucial source for this in-depth study on the influence of interest groups in the case of bringing aviation in the EU Emissions Trading System. I highly appreciate the interviewees’ willingness to contribute to this research and I am thankful for the time and effort they have spent on proving the necessary information.
Rotterdam, July 2012
Table of contents
Abstract...... 1
Acknowledgments...... 2
List of contents...... 3
List of tables...... 5
Abbreviations...... 6
1.Introduction...... 7
1.1 Introduction...... 7
1.2 Problem statement...... 8
1.3 Research aim and research question...... 9
1.4 Theoretical and societal relevance...... 10
1.5 Research structure...... 11
2. Background - interest representation in the EU...... 12
2.1 Definitions of lobbying and types of interest groups...... 12
2.2 Defining influence...... 13
2.3 Routes to influence - whom to lobby?...... 14
2.4 The EU decision-making process: the ordinary legislative procedure...... 15
3. Theoretical framework...... 17
3.1 Selection and specification of theories...... 17
3.2 Access goods theory ...... 19
3.2.1 Predictions...... 21
3.3 Structural characteristics theory...... 21
3.3.1 Predictions ...... 22
3.4 Issue-characteristics theory...... 23
3.4.1 Predictions ...... 24
4. Research design...... 25
4.1 Discussion of available designs...... 25
4.1.1 Quasi-experimental design...... 25
4.1.2 Cross-sectional design...... 26
4.1.3 Case study...... 27
4.1.4 Selection of design: case study - congruence analysis...... 27
4.2 Discussion of available methods for measuring influence...... 27
4.2.1 Attributed interest method...... 28
4.2.2 Assessing the degree of preferences attainment...... 28
4.2.3 Process-tracing method...... 28
4.2.4 Selection of method: process tracing combined with congruence analysis....29
4.3 Data collection...... 29
4.3.1 Desk research...... 29
4.3.2 Interviews...... 30
5. The case of including aviation emissions in the EU ETS...... 33
5.1. EU climate change policy and the EU ETS...... 33
5.2. The case - Directive 2008/101/EC...... 34
5.3. Identification of relevant interest groups...... 35
6. Process tracing applied to the case...... 37
6.1 Preferences of interest groups in regard to the case...... 37
6.1.1 Transport and Environment (T & E)...... 37
6.1.2 European Regional Airlines Association (ERA)...... 38
6.2 The final outcome Directive 2008/101/EC...... 38
6.3 Comparison of preferences versus the final outcome...... 39
6.4 The course of political decision-making process...... 41
6.5 Tracing the lobbying process...... 43
6.5.1 Lobbying the Commission...... 43
6.5.2 Lobbying the European Parliament...... 44
6.5.3 Lobbying the Council and additional lobbying...... 44
6.6 Comparison of the scope of activities...... 45
6.7 Statements concerning the final outcome...... 46
7. Congruence analysis proper – data analysis...... 48
7.1 Access goods theory...... 48
7.1.1 Prediction 1: providing information to the right institution...... 48
7.1.2 Prediction 2: scope of information inflow and meetings...... 49
7.2 Structural characteristics theory...... 49
7.2.1 Prediction 1: staff and membership size...... 49
7.2.2 Prediction 2: more diverse lobbying activities and special lobbying techniques50
7.2.3 Prediction 3: status quo versus policy change...... 50
7.3. Issue-characteristics theory...... 51
7.3.1 Prediction 1: public visibility of the issue...... 51
7.3.2 Prediction 2: increasing saliency of the issue...... 51
7.3.3 Prediction 3: degree of conflict – forming alliances...... 52
7.4 Conclusions on congruence analysis proper...... 53
8. Conclusion...... 55
8.1 Summing up the research...... 55
8.2 Answer to the research question and findings ...... 55
8.3 Recommendations for future research...... 57
References...... 58
Appendix 1: List of interviewed persons (May – June 2012)...... 63
Appendix 2: List of people contacted for an interview...... 64
Appendix 3: Questionnaire for interest groups under investigation...... 66
Appendix 4: Questionnaire for other interst groups...... 68
Appendix 5: List of published position papers by both interest groups...... 70
List of tables
Table 1 Data collection sources for the process-tracing method ...... 32
Table 2 Comparison of Transport & Environment preferences versus the final outcome..40
Table 3 Comparison of European Regional Airlines Association preferences versus the final outcome40
Table 4 Number of issues reflected in the final outcome ...... 41
Table 5 Time line of decision-making process in including aviation in to the EU ETS....42
Table 6 Summarizing and comparing lobbying activities ...... 46
Table 7 Staff and membership size ...... 50
Table 8 Results of testing theoretically derived predictions with empirical observations ..53
Abbreviations
AEA / Association of European AirlinesAWG / Aviation Working Group
CAN-Europe / Climate Action Network Europe
CO2 / Carbon dioxide
CEO / Corporate Europe Observatory
DG / Directorate General
ECCP / European Climate Change Programme
ENVI Committee / Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee
EP / European Parliament
ERA / European Regional Association
EU / European Union
EU ETS / European Union Emissions Trading System
IATA / International Air Transport Association
ICAO / International Civil Aviation Organization
NGO / Non-governmental Organization
MEP / Member of the European Parliament
NOx / Mono-nitrogen oxides
T & E / Transport and Environment Federation
UK / United Kingdom
Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1Introduction
The phenomenon of ‘lobbying’ has recently drawn attention of social science scholars due to the rising number of actors involved in lobbying activities at both, national and the European levels. As a matter of fact, the Latin word labium means an entrance hall or a lounge, and lobbying refers to the fact that political decisions are also often made in the pre-parliamentarian phase with the aim of balancing different interests of multiple actors (van Schendelen, 2010: 47). Interest groups play a central role in all democratic political systems as they can also be stated to represent civil society, which is vital for democracy due to its ability to build social capital and trust. As pointed out by HixHoyland (2011), civil society in Brussels is more developed, dense, and complex than in any national capital of Europe (Ibid.: 159). This is one of the main reasons why Brussels has attracted a great number of interest groups.
It is often claimed that the politics and policy-making in Brussels can be characterized by the lack of transparency, as it not always clear what actions are performed and how decisions came about. Interest groups try to manage the European Union (EU) policy cycle through their lobbying efforts for their own interests, and this also leads to a unique European lobbying process where openness and transparency of political institutions can beincreased due to their involvement. Therefore, lobbying plays a double role as it is an instrument to represent the priorities of interest groups and a way to influence the decision-making process, while at the same time, it is also a solution for the so-called ‘information deficit’ of the EU institutions. Interest groups have a unique role in the European decision-making process as it can be stated that none of the actors possesses too much power in relation to others, and thus, different actors become dependent on each other for different resources (Coen & Richardson, 2009).
Lobbying in Brussels differs from traditional lobbying in the member-states due to its multi-level structure. Lobbying takes places on the multiple levels as the adoption of EU legislation requires involvement of the Commission, the European Parliament (EP) and the Council of Ministers, which means that interest groups would usually target all of these levels. As there are different relationships between these institutions, lobbying one of them does not necessarily render the same results when lobbying another one. In addition, the EP has recently gained more power due to the adoption of the co-decision procedure which means that interest groups also had to adjust their strategies accordingly.
Together with the dynamic development of the European institutions, the launching of the internal market and the wider European integration the amount of interest groups operating at the European level increased considerably, and interest representation has become a widely researched topic. In academia interest group representation has been analyzed from different perspectives, such as: in single policy fields, in relation to democracy theories and European integration, and also in terms of the impact that private actors can have on the European decision-making process. However, the latter issue has been rather poorly researched which is perhaps well characterized by the words of Beyers et al. (2008): much we study little we know. Researching interest groups influence remains a somehow niche field within political science, and according to the authors this is partly due the fact that this issue has been approached through isolated case studies, weak conceptualization of the term influence and one-sidedness of research questions (Ibid.: 1117). Therefore, the essential questions remains: what explains the influence of interest groups?
The focus of this study touches upon the EU environmental policy, and particularly climate change, as it is currently one of the biggest threats facing the planet and it now at the top of the political agenda worldwide. It is also one of the top priorities for the EU which has long been a driving force in international climate change negotiations that, for instance, led to the United Nations climate treaties, such as the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. The EU’s initiatives have included mandating the increased use of renewable energy sources, supporting the development of carbon capture and storage technologies, and launching the European Climate Change Programme (ECCP) in 2000. The latter one led to the adoption of new measures and policies, including the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), which is perceived as a key tool for reducing greenhouse emissions in an environmentally friendly and cost-effective way (European Commission, 2012a).
The EU has recently also decided to mitigate the climate impacts of the aviation sector by including aviation in the EU ETS with the Directive 2008/101/EC, or the so-called Aviation Directive. Aviation currently contributes about 2 per cent of global carbon emissions, and the challenge is to maintain economic benefits of the aviation sector while also tackling its environmental impacts. With this decision the EU is imposing a cap on CO2 aviation emissions from all international flights that arrive at or depart from an EU airport from January 2012, which means that aircrafts will have to surrender emissions permits to match the emissions produced during the flights. However, as much as 85 per cent of the allowances based on the 2004-2006 average emissions of aircrafts will be given free of charge, while 15 per cent will be auctioned between different sectors (the EP & the Council, 2008).
The issue of including aviation in the EU ETS is of controversial character as different parties have expressed their dissatisfaction and concerns with this decision. While environmental interests voiced their opinion that the adopted measures are not strong enough and will actually lead to increased emissions, the aviation industry pointed out that the measures will burden the aviation sector and the European single market, while also causing an ‘international legal mess’ (Phillips, 2008). The EU’s main trade partners, such as, China and the United States have also condemned it for potential hidden agenda of protectionist policies (Pisany-Ferry, 2012). In addition, the EU ETS has been criticized for its failure as according to some reports in reality it has rewarded major polluters with windfall profits, and it undermines the efforts to cut pollution and to achieve sustainable economy (CEO, 2011).
The aim of this research is to shed light on the poorly researched topic of interest group influence while taking the issue of inclusion of aviation in the EU ETS as its case study. The following two sub-sections will indicate the problem statement, elaborate on the aim of this research and present the central research question. This will be followed by description of the theoretical and societal relevance of this research study, and finally, the structure of this paper will be explained.
1.2 Problem statement
A relatively wide scope of issues concerning lobbying has been previously researched in academia, such as: the Europeanization of the EU policy process; the nature of EU lobbying and how business interests appear to be better represented than other interest groups; access strategies to the EU institutions; the choice of which institutions to target; and different routes for approaching the EU policy-process. As pointed out above, researching actual interest group influence has somehow remained a niche field (Beyers et al., 2008).
Dur (2008a, 2008b, 2008c) acknowledges that due to inherent difficulties in measuring interest group influence, only few studies have addressed the question of influence and policy consequences of interest representation before. According to him, measuring influence of interest groups remains a complicated task due to three distinct problems: the existence of different channels of influence, counteractive lobbying, and the fact that influence can be wielded at different stages of policy making. With regard to the first problem, the measurement mostly neglects the possibility that influence can be exercised through a variety of channels. Second, even though the outcome of policy might not be close to a lobbying group’s interest, it does not necessarily mean that the group lacked influence, rather it could be explained by the fact that it had to counter the interests of another groups. Third, it is difficult for a research to measure influence and to track influence attempts at all stages of policy process.
Mahoney (2007) notes that scholars have been long avoiding the question of interest group influence, and have been focusing on different lobbying related phenomena instead. These phenomena are: formation and organization of interest groups, their access strategies to policy-makers, and their lobbying activities. Instead of studying influence per se, Mahoney investigates the so-called ‘lobbying success’. According to her it can give a sense of who is winning or losing in policy-making process, and an understanding of the reasons behind it. However, lobbying success does not always prove influence of a group, as an outcome might be in line with one’s preferences even though no action was taken to bring that outcome. Furthermore, she argues that factors at three different levels determine the final success of interest groups: institutional, issue-specific and interest group characteristics.
Also Bouwen (2004) states that measuring influence is rather problematic, and due to this fact he is, instead, focusing on studying the access of business interests to the EU institutions. He admits that access does not necessarily imply influence, but it can be claimed that a close relationship exists between the two as power cannot be reached without access. Bouwen proposes a theoretical framework that explains the access of different organizational forms of business interests to the European institutions. The degree of access to these institutions is explained with a theory of supply and demand of access goods. The most important access good is usually information which is crucial for the EU institutions in policy making processes, and every institution has is own type of information that it most requires. Therefore, if an interest group can provide demanded access goods to the right institution, in return, it can access the policy-making process which can possibly lead to influence.
1.3Research aim and research question
As pointed out above, research concerned with interest group influence shows considerable gaps in establishing what leads to successful influence on EU policy-making, and this still remains an important question in political science research. Therefore, the aim of this study is to narrow down this gap and to improve our understanding of what factors are decisive and affect influence exerted by interest groups. This will be investigated by testing three theories which have been previously used in academia for explaining influence attempts and success. These theories are: access goods theory, structural characteristics theory and issues-characteristics theory. Predictions derived from these theories will be tested against empirical data by applying a research design called congruence analysis. The aim is to establish which of these theories has better explanatory power when it comes to influence of interest groups in the case of lobbying the Directive 2008/101/EC as of bringing aviation in the EU ETS.