A Fragmented Environment: Interest Groups and the Commission’s Bureaucratic Sectorisation

While an increasing number of academic publications put forth diverse causal variables which determine interest groups’ attitudes on the European level, few have addressed the question of how bureaucratic sectorisation of the Commission services supports or prevents the emergence of a European form of interest representation. This article argues that country specific styles of interest intermediation interact with EU-level specific opportunity structures, which open or close channels for interest representation. In an increasing number of policy areas, different Commission services share competences. This creates a situation in which bureaucratic competition arises between these services. The main question of the paper is therefore how these internal conflicts influence the emergence of a European form of interest intermediation.