SHOW ME THE MONEY: THE IMPORTANCE OF EU FUNDING FOR THE ACTIVITIES OF INTEREST GROUPS IN POST-SOCIALIST COUNTRIES
SHOW ME THE MONEY: THE IMPORTANCE OF EU FUNDING FOR THE ACTIVITIES OF INTEREST GROUPS IN POST-SOCIALIST COUNTRIES

Summary/Abstract: With pressures stemming from the increasing dissatisfaction with the democratic deficit, the European Union (EU) has taken different measures for getting closer to its citizens. One such measure is the European Commission’s funding of interest groups, which consequently encourages their formal and informal participation in EU policymaking. In this way, the EU also supports interest groups in their generating of expertise and giving valuable information to EU officials who are preparing legislation. In this article we analyse the main characteristics of national interest groups from selected Central and Eastern European post-socialist countries that receive EU money and at the same time are supposed to be supported with EU money vis-à-vis Western EU member-states to a lesser extent. The analysis is based on the data collected in frame of Comparative Interest Groups Survey project with a web survey that was conducted among national interest groups from Slovenia, Lithuania and Poland. The research results show that although EU funds are less important sources of funding than other sources, they have a substantial effect on interest groups in Central and Eastern Europe. Interest groups that receive EU funding have bigger budgets, better access to national and EU decision-makers and are more likely to lobby.

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