Access, Power and Lobbying in the European Union: Evidence from the Rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union

The Presidency of the Council of the European Union holds direct responsibility for the Council’s functioning, and rotates every six months among EU Member States. Since the Council Presidency entails important agenda-setting, coordination and managerial functions, it constitutes a key position in the EU’s institutional framework and provides significant strategic value to Member States. Using a unique new dataset including all registrations of lobby organisations in the European Transparency Register over the 2008-2016 period and exploiting the exogenous rotation scheme of the Council Presidency across EU countries for identification purposes, we show that national lobby groups tend to increase their lobbying efforts when their country holds the Council Presidency. Specifically, we find that the Council Presidency causes an increase in the number of lobby groups from the Presidency’s country in the European Transparency Register. This upsurge is particularly pronounced among consultancies and NGOs, and among lobby groups with predominantly European (rather than national/local) interests. Taken together, these findings indicate that national lobby groups attempt to capitalize on the temporary increase in their country’s power within the EU.