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Attempts to make the EU lobby register mandatory and applicable to all three main EU institutions have repeatedly been stalled by inter-institutional conflicts (Photo: Daniel Huizinga)

Feature

How corporate lobbyists steer EU law-making

Attempts to make the EU lobby register mandatory and applicable to all three main EU institutions have repeatedly been stalled by inter-institutional conflicts (Photo: Daniel Huizinga)

Lobbyists have operated in Brussels for almost as long as the European institutions settled down there.

In 1965, several Dutch newspapers reported with a sense of amazement how "pressure groups" had descended in the unofficial European capital to influence officials working for the European Economic Community (EEC) - the then seven years-old predecessor to the European Union.

The journalists highlighted the smorgasbord of corporate interests represented by such groups: the faucet...

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Author Bio

Peter Teffer is an investigative journalist who was part of the EUobserver reporting team from 2014 to 2019. His book Het lijkt Washington wel: Hoe lobbyisten Brussel in hun greep hebben [It looks like Washington here. How lobbyists dominate Brussels] is available in Dutch from 12 March.

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