ABSTRACT
In this article we challenge Kurzer and Cooper's claim that the industry was able to get its way in the Food Information to Consumers Regulation by successfully lobbying the European Parliament and benefiting from an industry-friendly rapporteur. We scrutinize their findings through a comprehensive analysis of all amendments tabled in the environmental committee at first reading and a process tracing of the 12 most salient issues. Our results indicate a rather balanced rapporteur and show that both the ENVI committee and the plenary EP changed the regulation in favour of consumer interests on a significant number of points, with key victories for the industry being the result of pressure from the Council, not from the European Parliament. We explain these results on the basis of earlier work examining the role-behaviour of rapporteurs and the functioning of Parliament committees.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors wish to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their critical and stimulating comments on previous versions of this article.
SUPPLEMENTAL DATA AND RESEARCH MATERIALS
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the Taylor and Francis website, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2015.1051095.
ORCID
Herman Lelieveldt http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6387-3488
Notes
1 Pearson's R correlation coefficients vary according to the party positioning measure used and range from 0.22 (party group estimate) to 0.502 (domestic party affiliation).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Anneloes Hoff
Anneloes Hoff and Ramon van der Does are currently pursuing postgraduate degrees at Oxford University and Leiden University respectively.
Herman Lelieveldt
Herman Lelieveldt is associate professor of political science at University College Roosevelt.
Ramon van der Does
Anneloes Hoff and Ramon van der Does are currently pursuing postgraduate degrees at Oxford University and Leiden University respectively.