Expected influence of pro-migrant groups to be exerted on the different case

studies that are to be examined in the course of this PhD thesis, the resource dependence structures of the EU institutions and the pro-migrant groups need to be linked with the decision-making procedures at EU level. In so doing, the political opportunity structures that pro-migrant groups encounter at EU level are sketched. In that context, political opportunity structures are defined as, one, the authority that the EU institutions hold during a policy- shaping process and, two, their responsiveness towards the claims of the pro-migrant groups.

The authority of the EU institutions is construed from the different decision-making procedures under which the four case studies have been adopted. While the original LTR Directive and the original Qualification Directive were negotiated under consultation procedure, the extension of the LTR Directive and the recast Qualification Directive were adopted under the ordinary legislative procedure. Having said that, while the legislative authority over the two original directives has been shared between the Commission and the Council, all three EU institutions – Commission, Parliament, and Council – were responsible for the two recent directives. Thus, the Commission and the Council have been authoritative legislators during the negotiations of all four directives, whereas the Parliament only recently obtained authority in the decision-making processes of the extension of the LTR Directive and the recast Qualification Directive. The responsiveness of the EU institutions, in turn, can be deduced from their dependence on resources provided by the pro-migrant groups. Recapitulating, it is the Commission and the Parliament that are expected to rely on all three types of resources; namely, expert knowledge, support, and legitimacy. The Council, on the contrary, is assumed to be exclusively and only partly reliant on pro-migrant groups for the provision with expert knowledge. As the dependence structures of the three EU institutions differ significantly, it does seem reasonable to believe that the Commission and the Parliament are more responsive to the claims of the pro-migrant groups than the Council is.

Pro-migrant groups, on their part, are assumed to choose their lobbying strategies and venues according to the legislative authority of the different decision-makers and their responsiveness towards the objectives of the groups. In this context, it is assumed that an institution with high authority and responsiveness towards the demands of the groups constitutes the ideal lobbying object. An ideal institution is easily accessible, its policy proposals are aligned to the ideas of the pro-migrant groups, and it is powerful enough to drive the policy-making process.

On the contrary, a low level of authority and low responsiveness towards the claims of the groups would render the lobbying of that institution hopeless because neither is the said institution accessible nor does it hold enough authority to actively shape the policy outcome. In addition, lobbying an institution that has low authority in the policy-making process but is responsive towards the political objectives of the pro-migrant groups is expected to be unfeasible because it appears to be unlikely that this institution is able to convince more authoritative policy-makers of its ideas. Finally, an institution with high legislative authority but low responsiveness towards the claims of the interest groups is believed to be difficult to lobby. But even though the lobbying might be elaborate, it seems to be worthwhile as the said institution holds enough authority to actively shape the policy outcome.

As a consequence, it is expected that, rather than approaching the Parliament which had only the right to be consulted when the original LTR Directive and the original Qualification Directive were negotiated, the pro-migrant groups focussed their lobbying efforts on the Commission and the Council. The Commission, in that context, appears to have been the natural cooperation partner of the pro-migrant groups, as it was in charge of drafting the proposals for the directives and based on its resource dependencies must have been responsive to the claims of the pro-migrant groups. The Council, on the contrary, is supposed to have been less responsive towards the objectives of the pro-migrant groups. Nevertheless, the Council is understood as having been worth lobbying because it had the unrestrained right to decide about the proposals of the Commission. The legislative authority with regards to asylum and migration matters, however, changed with the coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty. During the negotiations of the extension of the LTR Directive and the recast Qualification Directive, therefore, the Commission and the Parliament are expected to have been crucial lobbying objects. They shared legislative authority over asylum and migration issues and, deducing from their resource dependence structures, are supposed to have been highly responsive towards the claims of the pro-migrant groups. The Council, too, held legislative authority over the two post-Lisbon case studies – albeit less authority than before the introduction of the ordinary legislative procedure. Its expected low responsiveness towards the ideas of the pro-migrant groups as a result of its resource independence, however, seems to have rendered the lobbying efforts of the groups more elaborate.

The four variants of lobbying conditions for pro-migrant groups that result from the two properties ‘authority’ and ‘responsiveness’ of the EU institutions are summarised in the following table.

Table 1: 2x2 typology of lobbying conditions for pro-migrant groups inferred from authority and responsiveness of the EU institutions

Following the above considerations, it can be summarised that the responsiveness of the EU institutions towards the ideas of the pro-migrant groups is supposed to have remained stable in the course of the negotiations of the original directives and the renegotiations. This assumption is justified by the resource dependence structures of the EU institutions that are not expected to have changed over that period of time. By contrast, the authority of the Parliament has increased as a consequence of the introduction of the ordinary legislative procedure, whereas the Council has lost its exclusive right to decide upon asylum and migration matters. The entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, in turn, did not modify the Commission’s right of initiative. With the effect of authority and responsiveness on the part of the EU institutions in mind, null hypotheses and alternative hypotheses about the influence that pro-migrant groups can exert on the different policy proposals are inferred. Thereby, the null hypothesis states that there is no relationship between two phenomena; it is contrasted with an alternative hypothesis. In the context of this study, the following null hypotheses assume that there is no relationship between the decision-making procedure and the influence of pro-migrant groups, whereas the alternative hypotheses suggest that this relationship does exist. In total, four hypotheses are inferred – two for the effect of the consultation procedure on political influence and two for the effect of the ordinary legislative procedure on political influence.

H01: The influence of pro-migrant groups on policy proposals that are discussed under consultation procedure is medium or higher than medium.

Ha1: The influence of pro-migrant groups on policy proposals that are discussed under consultation procedure is less than medium or low.

H02: The influence of pro-migrant groups on policy proposals that are discussed under ordinary legislative procedure is less than medium or low.

Ha2: The influence of pro-migrant groups on policy proposals that are discussed under ordinary legislative procedure is medium or higher than medium.

To meet the criteria for ‘medium or higher than medium’ influence, firstly, the groups need to attain at least 50 per cent of their preferences on average. Secondly, results gained from the attributed influence assessment need to confirm that the interest representatives and the EU officials ascribe the pro-migrant groups significant influence on the respective policy proposal. To meet the criteria for ‘less than medium or low’ influence, firstly, the preference attainment analysis needs to produce rates that are below 50 per cent. Secondly, interest representatives and EU officials need to acknowledge that the groups exerted marginal or moderate influence on the respective policy proposal.