Au cœur du lobbying européen
As Julien Navarro, lecturer in politics at the Catholic University of Lille, point out in his introduction to this book, “interest groups and lobbies are an integral part of the way the European Union works” (our translation throughout). This concept is brought vividly to life by the journalist Jean Comte, the author of many investigations into lobbying, transparency and matters of public ethics in the EU institutions.
“In mid-2022, the number of entities on the official register of lobbyists exceeded 12,500, marking 10 years of an almost continuous increase”, Comte observes. The considerable influence brought to bear by interest groups on European politics can be explained not so much by the enormous resources they deploy as by the fact that the “European institutions have created a system which directly and proactively seeks their intervention at all levels of law-making”, the author stresses, going on to show us how lobbying is carried out at the very heart of EU functioning and how it contributes to standard-setting. Originally it was “out of the desire to circumnavigate national antagonisms and roadblocks from partisan politics that the European Communities, right from the days of the European Coal and Steel Community, followed a logic of depoliticisation, by means of privileged dialogue with organised representatives of interests”, Navarro explains, taking pains to stress that the “direct election of the European Parliament from 1979 onwards and the increased role of this institution in appointing the Commission since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty were not enough to move away from this logic”.
The reality is very different from the impression given by the regular criticism of lobbying that appears in the traditional media or on social networks. “Instead of lobbyists harassing European civil servants to influence them from outside, it is more a question of lobbyists carrying out exchanges with them, right from the preliminary fact-finding stage in the every legislative project”, Comte explains, adding: “it is not a matter of influence being brought to bear in one direction only, but interactions taking place both ways – with efforts at influencing on the one hand, but also constant requests for information and expert knowledge which largely justifies the existence of the relationship on the other”. “This situation has not come about by chance or as a result of any recent opportunism on the part of lobby groups”, but it is a “strategy consciously implemented by the European Commission from its earliest days in the 1960s”, the author points out, adding that the “executive of the fledgling European Economic Community provided strong inducements for the various industrial sectors of the continent to come together in pan-European entities to benefit from representative spokespersons. Dialogue with these helped to establish its legitimacy in the eyes of the member states and, of course, to collect the expertise and data it would not otherwise have”. Among the formal and informal mechanisms of this legislative collaboration or “co-construction”, the book describes the functioning and role of expert groups, parliamentary inter-groups, consultants and normalisation bodies.
“Yet NGOs suffer a major disadvantage compared to the private sector: financing. Where major businesses can continuously mobilise sufficient resources to support a lobbying structure, nature and animals are incapable of funding the Friends of the Earth or Eurogroup for Animals. There are, of course, always citizens who are prepared to donate to these structures, but by its very nature, this support is unpredictable and does not in itself provide the necessary visibility to secure the long-term leasing of office premises or recruitment of permanent staff”, Comte points out, going on to stress that the Commission is aware of the problem and provides financial support to various NGOs in order to “make sure that the opinions of certain interest groups can be expressed properly at European level (the interests of consumers, disabled citizens, ecological interests, etc.)”.
The author also points out that contrary to popular opinion, the “European executive is a numerically small administration, buckling under enormous budgetary constraints and struggling to attract young recruits”. “This institution has no option other than regularly to redeploy its staff to deal with an ever-increasing list of tasks”, he adds. While this goes some way to explaining its reliance on the technical expertise of lobbies, it is also characteristic of the issues with transparency and the perception of these same lobbies, as its administrative capacities are too stretched to identify and sanction abuses. He explains that the European register has just eight full-time equivalents to manage 13,500 registrations. “By way of comparison, the French register had 10 full-time equivalents at the end of 2020 for just over 2000 registered organisations. The Canadian register, furthermore, has four times the number of staff for just 6800 lobbyists”, Comte states, adding that in 2019, he carried out investigations into the lobbying spends of several major companies included on the register. He showed that the French groups Dassault and Atos declared the amounts of 10,000 and 50,000 euros respectively in 2018, whereas in both cases, the actual amounts were 20 times higher.
“As well as the a minima regulations covering lobbying, Brussels suffers from another blind spot when it comes to public ethics: its low standards of obligations on revolving-door employment and conflicts of interest where, again, rules could be tightened up and checks are insufficient”, the author observes, recommending a reinforcement of the rules, controls and sanctions to cover the entire spectrum from lobbying to conflict interests. “The aim of the exercise is not to be tough for the sake of it”, he writes by way of conclusion, adding that in fact “making [lobbying] more transparent would ease the public debate and pave the way for a more objective collective reflection on how public policies are made”. Olivier Jehin
Jean Comte. Au cœur du lobbying européen (available in French only). Presses universitaires de Liège. ISBN: 978-2-8756-2332-4. 152 pages. €15,00
Ordre et allégeance en Russie poutinienne
In this work, Gilles Favarel-Garrigues, who holds a PhD in politics and is head of research at the French national centre for scientific research (CNRS), takes a look at the wellsprings of the exercise of power in Russia. It “deals with the political and social practices of coercion, analysing the way in which senior political and administrative figures are kept in check, the practice of intimidation in the business world and citizens’ initiatives in the fight against crime and incivilities” (our translation throughout). It is based not only on the author’s research work, but also on his own lived experience: Favarel-Garrigues hand a front-row seat for the rise of authoritarianism in Russia and himself “paid the price of the ‘dictatorship of law’ when he was accused of economic espionage, sentenced and forced to leave the country in 2008”.
The “dictatorship of law”, which was initiated by Vladimir Putin in 2000, can be defined as the means of ensuring political domination by gearing all judicial procedures and decisions to favour the ruling power, the author explains, describing it as being used arbitrarily, running counter to the rule of law, but in a way that “gives the justice system a central role in upholding and justifying the order in place”. “Analyses of the use of law in an authoritarian context, which focus on the persecution of opponents and the repression of fundamental freedoms, generally overlook another aspect of political domination: curbing the elite. Yet the ‘dictatorship of law’ also makes it possible to impose a consensus within the ruling class, to force them to be loyal, by dangling the threat of legal proceedings in the event of failure to toe the line. It thrives on the legal vulnerability of senior officials: in very many cases, they have used their position – in local government, political institutions or business – to acquire wealth illegally. And even in the case of those with nothing to reproach themselves with, the ‘dictatorship of law’ can bring entirely fabricated accusations. By making it too difficult for the elite to step out of line, it cements the Russian political regime with undeniable effectiveness”, the author explains.
Although the dictatorship of law “lends itself to decentralised use in favour of power plays and predatory strategies”, most notably by the law enforcement authorities or local elites, its autonomous implementation can cause scandal on occasion and can backfire on its instigators, thereby offering an opportunity for presidential arbitration designed to remind anybody in possession of discretionary powers that “this privilege can be just as fleeting as it is uncertain”, Favarel-Garrigues explains, going on to add that the “fractal reproduction of the ‘dictatorship of law’ is not limited to local elites or law enforcement agents. It goes on within society itself, among the many self-proclaimed vigilantes who claim for themselves the right to punish and are mutating into apprentice public prosecutors. To hear them speak, their initiatives stem from the existence of strong social demand. Without any way of knowing how this expresses itself, this popular aspiration is used by way of justification by all those wishing to maintain or re-establish order in the country. The ad hoc righters of wrongs are evolving in a world of intransigence: from the members of United Russia to opposition figures such as Navalny, via political formations such as the Communist Party, which act as guarantors for the presidential domination, all demonstrate an implacable determination to ensure the domination of the law”.
In the 2000s and onwards, it would sometimes happen that, by bringing to bear the resources of the dictatorship of law and of kompromat (compromising material, often entirely fabricated, used to harm the reputation of an individual or provide a pretext for legal proceedings: Ed), “elements of the ruling elite and of the righters of wrongs” came together “to tackle a common concept of the enemy – the migrant, whom they blamed not only for insecurity in cities, but also, ultimately, for the watering down of a national identity dominated by ethnic Russians”, the author writes, adding that “under the Putin regime, this coalition has moved gradually to take on other inter-related targets: distrust of the West, whilst opposition figures, stigmatised as ‘liberals’, stood accused of treason. This alliance draws its legitimacy from an imaginary social situation which, on the one hand, depicts American imperialism as one of the most serious plagues upon the world and, on the other, associates the Western world with the kind of liberalism that is liable to lead to moral disintegration. The offensive being led against ‘non-traditional’ sexual practices is the greatest emblem of a fight that has become justified in civilisational terms. The aggregation of geopolitical and moral considerations has led to the creation of a political programme that brings together various players and has every chance of finding support among the population. This programme, which is dedicated to the removal of a dual threat – internal and external – brings together moral police and political repression of ‘foreign agents’, threatening national integrity”. When Vladimir Putin spoke out openly against the United States and the expansion of NATO at the Munich Security Conference of 2007, his speech was part of a movement that was very much already in place.
“With the invasion of Ukraine, the ‘dictatorship of law’, which has been gathering speed in Russia for two decades, has continued (…). The staging of the ‘vertical of power’ and the allegiance of elite circles with the president culminated on 21 February 2022, three days before the start of the armed offensive”, when the hierarchies of the Russian Security Council were called upon by Putin to lend their support to the decision to recognise the sovereignty of the “People’s republics” of Donbass, Favarel-Garrigues states, noting that “behind this simulacrum of consultation designed to depict a collegial endeavour, the staging shows the all-powerfulness of a despot who terrifies his most faithful allies”. The silencing of any voices raised in opposition became “ferocious”: the Russian “fake news laws” on military operations underway encourages the monitoring of social networks and the denunciation of opponents of the war and has been reflected in the activation of tribunals, which have delivered many convictions.
“Governing through fear is the art of smoke and mirrors and pretence”, Favarel-Garrigues notes by way of conclusion, adding that the “framing of civil society under Vladimir Putin is an emblematic illustration of this type of governance”, yet it is not the preserve of this regime alone. “The configurations of power in Russia under Putin have much in common with those in existence in Turkey under Erdoğan, Brazil under Bolsonaro or in India under Modi” and must serve as a warning against associating the exercise of power under Putin with a specific Russian culture or a foregone conclusion of history. (OJ)
Gilles Favarel-Garrigues. La verticale de la peur – Ordre et allégeance en Russie poutinienne (available in French only). La Découverte. ISBN: 978-2-3480-7732-6. 236 pages. €19,50
Les enjeux juridiques et stratégiques insoupçonnés de la très haute altitude
In this analysis, Alain De Neve looks at the new challenges of the deployment of air balloons for military purposes, such as the Chinese balloon that was shot down on 4 February of this year by an AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missile fired by an F-22 off the coast of North Carolina.
“Contrary to what we believe we know about these devices, which are part of the family of technological solutions known as ‘high altitude platform stations’ (HAPS), they are very likely to become fundamental constituents of the military intelligence networks of states that are capable of developing and deploying them”, the author stresses, explaining that these balloons can be as long as 130 m for a volume of 800,000 m³. They have several major advantages: - they can remain above an observation point for several days; - they can take photographs from several angles, by being positioned as closely as possible; - they have a very low radar signature. While China has manifestly acquired a certain head-start by developing a fleet of balloons officially earmarked for meteorological research, various other programmes have come to light in the last 20 years (most of them since abandoned) in the United States and Russia. The Israeli air force is working on a balloon fitted with a high-precision radar that is expected to be deployed over the Golan Heights, in the framework of the “Iron Dome” programme.
These devices are also unique in that they can trouble to an altitude of between 35 and 50 km, in other words a zone where the laws do not apply: states can assert their sovereignty over their own airspace up to an altitude of 20 km (66,000 feet) and the provisions of the 1967 treaty on extra-atmospheric space only apply from an altitude of 100 km. In the absence of international rules and regulations, “there are concerns that these high levels of the atmosphere could become another theatre for confrontation” over the next decades, De Neve writes, pointing out that the fate of the Open Skies Treaty (from which the United States withdrew in 2020 and Russia in 2021) “makes it unlikely that there is any prospect of a negotiated regime applicable to these layers of the atmosphere”. (OJ)
Alain De Neve. Les enjeux juridiques et stratégiques insoupçonnés de la très haute altitude) available in French only). Institut royal supérieur de défense. e-Note 45. 13 March 2023. 10 pages. The document can be downloaded from the website of the Institute : https://www.defence-institute.be