Sokur S. Lobbying in the European Union.

The thesis is devoted to the complex of issues related to lobbying activities on the level of EU member states and on the level of EU institutions. The author analyzes conceptual and theoretical grounds of lobbying in the EU and defines essential elements of lobbying, such as technics, tactics, plan, forecast, strategy and resource supply for lobbying in the EU. The paper shows that the functional characteristics of institutions and consultancy bodies of the EU encourages international political lobbying in the EU and promotes lobbying by the international political actors. The above results into institutionalization of the lobbying in the European Union. The thesis investigates interdependence of national and institutional level of the EU in the context of lobbying. Therefore, the European Commission is interested in maintenance of relations with lobbying actors, since the received resources give an opportunity to exercise more effectively its institutional role. At the same time, providing information to the European Commission gives a chance to influence the decision-making process by the lobbyists. The European Parliament is under control of political groups, which are mostly represented on the national level and consequently could participate in decision-making process on the EU level and vice-versa. It is proved that in case of European Economic and Social committee, the interdependence could be identified on the basis of committee's structure and composition. Furthermore, the European Council and the Council of the European Union have a deep interdependence with national level of the EU, which results in privileged situation for the national lobbyists. In its turn, the European External Action Service is composed from representatives of EU member countries and is influenced by the internal and external lobbying actors. The paper also examines the lobbying towards supranational and intergovernmental institutions of the EU on the basis of the authority, organizational structure and their functioning. The above enables setting the level of the openness of institutions and bodies of the EU towards internal or external lobbying actors. The level of institutionalization of lobbying in all EU member states is also a subject of this research.