The Organisation of Business Interests in Central and East European Countries for EU Representation

Abstract

The Chambers’ Accession Programme for Eastern Europe (CAPE)¹ 2001 Survey on corporate readiness for the European Union (EU) Single Market in the ten candidate countries of Central Europe² shows that about 40 per cent of the companies surveyed regard EU lobbying as a ‘very important’ aspect of their representation activities. Within that group, the majority of companies rated lobbying at the domestic level higher than lobbying in Brussels. On the other hand, about 52 per cent of the companies polled believe EU lobbying not to be very important. However, about 30 per cent of that group still rate EU lobbying as being more important than lobbying at the domestic level. More importantly, despite the degree of importance awarded to EU lobbying, for almost 45 per cent of the companies surveyed, lobbying in Brussels makes more sense than lobbying at the domestic level.