The Fog of Integration: Reassessing the Role of Economic Interests in European Integration

The main theories of European economic integration argue that private economic interests provide the impetus and pressures for integration to move forward. Public policy analyses of the European Union's legislative process, however, show that intense lobbying by such interests can prevent legislative proposals from being adopted, even if economic interests were initially in favour of supranational legislation. How do we explain this apparent contradiction? The answer is that economic interests initially face great uncertainty as to the precise costs and benefits of integrating a particular policy area; only once the ‘fog of integration’ lifts—as a result of concrete legislative proposals being tabled by the Commission—are economic interests able to calculate these costs and benefits and, consequently, decide whether to lobby for or against the proposal. To provide a first-run validation of the argument, the article examines the cases of the Software Patent and Takeover directives.