The Iron Triangle
[SLIDE 1]
Political scientists sometimes refer to the relationship between the politicians, bureaucrats
and pressure groups as the Iron Triangle. The politician theoretically wields the most power,
but he is under constant pressure to compromise his political vision and bend to the will of
party, bureaucracy, pressure group and electorate. The bureaucrat, on the other hand, has
more experience of his department, has access to sensitive information and is better
connected to the rest of government. The pressure groups exist to make voices heard from
outside of government - hence the terms ‘non-governmental organisation’ and ‘civil
society’.
What would happen if the government, which is to say the politicians and the bureaucrats,
invaded one corner of the triangle and took over the pressure groups? What if nongovernmental organisations became increasingly governmental and civil society became
increasingly state-funded?
I will argue that, if this happened, state-funded pressure groups would not lobby for popular
causes—because there is no need to manufacture support for policies which already
command respect. Nor would they argue for business interests—those interests are already
represented. Instead, I suggest that they would advance causes which do not command
widespread support, but which are favoured by their political patrons. They would, for
example, lobby for higher taxes, bigger budgets, more regulation and the creation of new
agencies. Acting as part of an extended bureaucracy, they would engage in the same empirebuilding as we might expect from government departments, and the same rent-seeking as
would be expected from corporate lobbyists. These sock-puppet organisations would
masquerade as civil society while promoting the ideology of the political elite.
Their interests may be ideological rather than financial, but the groups will seek to impose
their policies on the rest of society like any other lobby group. The taxpayer will be
compelled to meet the costs that come from their policies being implemented, as well as
being forced to pay for the lobbying which helps the group achieve its ideological goals—
goals with which the taxpayer may profoundly disagree.
Furthermore, I will argue that none of this is wholly conjectural, but is a fair description of
many so-called non-governmental organisations in the EU today.
The Green 10
One example of this is the ‘Green 10’—the ten largest environmental non-profits—of which
only one, Greenpeace, does not receive EU funding and only because it has refused the
offer. [SLIDE 2]
The Green 10 has its own website where they openly admit that one of their roles is to lobby
for legislation.
“While campaigning at EU level, Green 10 NGOs:
•
•
encourage the full implementation of EU environmental laws and policies in the
Member States;
lobby for new environmental proposals, as appropriate”
A 2008 European Commission document discusses at length how funding of the Green 10
and forty-three other green organisations is designed “to promote the activities of European
environmental NGOs” who will, in turn, “support policy development.”
In practice, this means lobbying MEPs and issuing coordinated press releases, position
papers and memoranda to EU presidencies. EU-funded NGOs also reply regularly to public
consultations and are invited to help create policy.
This strategy has been most effective. The Green 10 has lobbied for changes to the Common
Agricultural Policy and Common Fisheries Policy. They take the credit for various policies
enshrined in the Constitutional Treaty and the Sustainable Development Strategy and boast
of having helped secure “an increase in the power of the European Parliament”. Friends of
the Earth Europe, which relies on the EU for most of its income, boasts of securing the
Kyoto Treaty and “getting eight Acts of Parliament passed in eight years.”
The Commission’s justification
The Commission’s justification for giving more than €8 million a year to nine
environmental lobby groups is that there is an “imbalance in the capacity of civil society to
catch up with the level of participation of industry/business.” The EU portrays the supposed
dominance of commercial interests in decision-making as a market failure to be put right
with government action. A 2005 EC report talked of an “asymmetry of power” which
“implies that a free market solution would be sub-optimal. An element of public funding to
environmental NGOs can therefore be seen as correcting for market failure.”1
But what is being referred to here is not market failure but government failure. If
environmental groups need state-funding because they would “otherwise have no access to
EU decision-makers”, as the European Environmental Bureau claims, this is a democratic
deficit that would be better dealt with by opening access to all rather than issuing large
cheques to selected special interests. Cash is not a prerequisite for access. If engaging with
the policy-making process were the real issue, an invitation to meet with MEPs and
bureaucrats would be a cheaper and equally effective alternative. In reality, these campaign
groups exist not only to persuade legislators but to persuade the wider public, and the Green
10 spends much of its time on grass-roots lobbying. The websites of environmental groups
are dominated by calls to action, e-mail petitions and accounts of local activism.
The Commission justifies funding civil society organisations on the grounds that it wants to
hear from every part of society, including—and especially—non-corporate interests who
might otherwise not have the financial clout to represent themselves in Brussels. As an
official from the European Directorate said in 2007, “Industries and companies involved are
much richer and they will be here and the NGOs have to be on an equal footing.”
The EU’s authority to create regulation in 27 countries undoubtedly makes Brussels a
powerful magnet for lobbyists and rent-seekers. As an aside, it might be noted that if the EU
Parliament created less legislation, there would be less need for lobbying. In any case, it is
by no means clear that funding more lobbyists is the answer. Nor is it obvious that the
funding of supposedly independent ‘civil society’ groups is financially necessary.
Greenpeace is just one example of a pressure group that sustains itself very well through
voluntary donations.
This Commission’s rationale for giving taxpayers’ money to special interest groups carries
the implicit assumption that corporate interests are necessarily at odds with the public
interest. Of course there are plenty of examples of corporate rent-seeking that could be
cited, but it is by no means axiomatic that non-profit organisations are more likely than
companies to act in the interests of consumers. There is no monolithic corporate interest,
just as there is no objectively defined public interest. There are simply special interest
groups, all of which claim to be acting in the public interest, but only some of which receive
favours from the Commission.
Far from correcting an “imbalance”, then, there are major biases in the EU’s funding
strategy which gives an advantage to certain interest groups which then crowd out other
1
‘Final report for The European Commission’, Agra CEAS Consulting Ltd, July 2005; p. 51
voices. It is inconceivable that the Commission would fund a civil society organisation that
supported the reintroduction of capital punishment or the criminalisation of abortion, for
example, although it does fund campaigners against the death penalty as far afield as Japan
and the United States. The Commission funds groups which espouse total abstinence from
alcohol, but it does not give grants to organisations representing the interests of drinkers. It
funds environmental organisations which can be fairly described as anti-motorist, but it does
not gives grants to the Automobile Association. I do not suggest that such groups should
receive state funding, only that the EU’s version of civil society is by no means a
microcosm of Europe in which every walk of life is represented. With very few exceptions,
groups which broadly support the Commission’s policy priorities are lifted to the top of the
‘civil society’ pedestal with ample financial support. Those which do not must make their
own way.
Other taxpayer-funded umbrella groups
Taxpayer funding of so-called civil society groups is endemic in the EU. To take a few
examples, the EU Civil Society Contact Group does not receive direct funding from the
Commission, but most of its members are subsidised by the European taxpayer, as shown
below. [SLIDE 3]
Within these umbrella groups are dozens of member organisations that are also heavily
reliant on EC funding [SLIDE 4]. For example, here are the members of Social Platform,
the vast majority of whom receive EU grants, frequently depending on taxpayers’ money for
the majority of their income.
If there is one single cause that unites all of these groups, it is the promotion of the EU
itself. For example, last year, a European Year of Citizens 2013 Alliance was formed as a
“response to the current disaffection against the European institutions”. Its members had
good reason to support these institutions since at least 80 per cent of them receive funding
from them, to the tune of over €18 million [SLIDE 5] Such is the scale of the funding that
this “civil society alliance” looks more like an extended bureaucracy. We do not have time
to discuss the countless think tanks, educational institutes, television stations, radio stations
and websites which are funded by the EU, nor do we have time to discuss the various EUfunded groups that are at work outside the EU.
This has been described as “government lobbying government”, or “funding the
cheerleaders”, or “propaganda by proxy”. In 2004 the Economist magazine called it a
“looking-glass world... in which so-called NGOs are actually dependent on government for
cash; and ... the European Commission, itself directly financed by Europe’s national
governments, finances “autonomous” organisations that campaign for more power and
money to be handed to the commission itself.” Clearly there are questions about whether
this is an appropriate use of taxpayers’ money, but even if we approve of such largesse, it is
doubtful whether the Commission is getting value for money. Despite the billions spent,
opinion polls show that faith in the EU is at an all-time low, turnouts at EU elections are at
an all-time low and the public still does not have the same priorities as the Commission. For
example, a recent survey found only 5% of those who live in the EU see climate change and
the environment as one of their top two concerns.
Connecting with Europeans
The Commission may be sincere in wishing to connect with the public. Certainly, it has a
democratic duty to consult widely on legislation which will, after all, have far-reaching
implications. It should not be faulted for attempting to bridge the gap between the Brussels
elite and the people of Europe, but the Commission’s policy of picking allies and supporting
them with public money has made the system, if anything, more elitist and less democratic.
If the EU suffers from a democratic deficit, as most agree it does, it has not been rectified by
handing money and power to unelected and unaccountable special interest groups. At best,
the EU’s engagement with ‘civil society’ has created a slightly larger elite. At worst, it has
been an expensive and anti-democratic attempt to manufacture support for unpopular
causes.
The solution to this problem is not to supply more money to more groups in an attempt to
create a political balance, but to reduce the level of funding to the point at which civil
society groups are given expenses for meetings with decision-makers, without being given
money to merely exist or to campaign amongst the general public. While some favoured
NGOs and pressure groups are given lavish funding, many other sections of society are
ignored by the EU when laws are being made. It is reasonable for the Commission to invite
a range of different voices to be heard. To that end, a case can be made for EU institutions
to assist in paying for travel and accommodation, and other general expenses to facilitate
meetings between stakeholders and lawmakers, but it should not provide core funding. The
current situation - in which EU institutions pick their favourites and become their largest
single donor is morally wrong, financially wasteful and democratically subversive.