The role of organised interests in shaping Croatia's negotiating positions in the Council of the EU

ABSTRACT

The relationship between interest groups and national governments in shaping the decision-making in the Council of the EU is still largely unobserved. By focusing on the case study of Croatia, this article contests the general assumptions of liberal intergovernmentalism about the process and character of national preference formation and demonstrates that economic and societal interests do not have primacy in influencing a national government’s positions in the Council. It is argued that the legacy of a country’s EU accession process, coupled with weak oversight and accountability mechanisms, are among the most important factors in explaining the government's non-inclusive management of EU affairs.

KEYWORDS:

• Croatia
• organised interests
• negotiating positions
• Council of the EU

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions. The initial version of the article has been presented to the 10th Conference of the ECPR Standing Group on the European Union (Section: Organised Interests and Civil Society in the EU Policy Process) held in June 2021. I am grateful to all participants for the discussion and their insightful remarks.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The term „organized interests“ will be used interchangeably in this paper with the term „interest groups“ and “non-state actors” to indicate the wider spectrum of actors which are trying to influence policy making process, but are not necessarily groups or membership organisations – from NGOs, trade union., to companies, universities or even self-employed consultants, etc.See for example: Lowery (2007), Dobbins and Riedel (2021)

2 See public announcement of government positions in the Council on the central government portal: https://eelnoud.valitsus.ee/main#yfF4eXyL

3 Interview with a representative of a consultancy company for EU affairs, 21.5.2021

4 N1info (2017) “ Za vanjske članove saborskih odbora odabrani stranački ljudi”, https://hr.n1info.com/vijesti/a257296-za-vanjske-clanove-saborskih-odbora-odabrani-stranacki-ljudi/

5 Interview with an external member of the European Affairs Committee of Croatian Parliament, 19.5.2021

6 Interview with a representative of the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, 26.5.2021

7 Interview with a representative of Independent Croatian Trade Unions, 27.5.2021

8 Namely, the Economic and Social Council which has been the key forum for tripartite social dialogue in Croatia since 1994

9 See for example: https://faktograf.hr/2020/12/23/hrvatska-protiv-prijedloga-europske-komisije-o-sirenju-kolektivnih-ugovora/

10 Interview with a representative of the trade unions in the Economic and Social Council of Croatia, 18.5. 2021

11 Interview with a representative of environmental NGOs in the Parliament committee, 29.5.2021

12 Data gathered from the EU Transparency Register Search, https://ec.europa.eu/transparencyregister/public/consultation/search.do?locale=hr&reset = 

13 The accelerated procedure of preparing national positions has been the recurring findings from the interviews.

14 Interview with a representative of business sector in parliamentary committee, 17.5.2021

15 Interview with a representative of the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs., 26.5.2021

16 Interview with a representative of trade unions in the Economic and Social Council of Croatia., 18.5.2021

17 Interview with member of Croatian Parliament, 24.5.2021

18 See https://esavjetovanja.gov.hr/ECon/Dashboard

19 Interview with a representative of Croatian Government, 25.5.2021

20 Database of EU documents dealt with by the Parliament, including national framework positions in the Council of the EU, are available at the website: https://sabor.hr/hr/europski-poslovi/postupanje-s-dokumentima-eu

21 Interview with a NGO representative in a parliamentary committee, 31.5.2021

22 Interview with a representative of Croatian Government, 25.5.2021

23 This was the case of the framework position on Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on a framework for adequate minimum wages in the European Union.

24 Interview with a representative of trade unions, 27.5.2021

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Notes on contributors

Igor Vidačak

Igor Vidačak is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb, Croatia. He holds a PhD in Comparative Politics from the University of Zagreb and an MA in European Political and Administrative Studies from the College of Europe Natolin. He leads courses on the European Union political system, interest groups and lobbying in the EU, and EU enlargement. He published the first book on lobbying in the Croatian language (Lobiranje - Interesne skupine i kanali utjecaja u Europskoj uniji, 2007). As an international consultant, he has around twenty years of experience in supporting better governance and civil society policy engagement in EU enlargement and neighbouring countries.