When Lobbying Actually Serves the Public Interest

In the public imagination, lobbies are shadowy forces, diverting public action from the common good. The very word lobbying conjures images closer to corruption than to influence: backroom deals, envelopes of cash, whispered agreements struck in corridors between an elected official and a lobbyist. Unlike corruption, however, lobbying is not illegal. It is even legally regulated. In France, the so-called Sapin II law and the High Authority for Transparency in Public Life require interest groups to declare who they are, whom they represent, and the means they use to influence the legislative process. At the European level, more than 16,000 organisations are listed in the Transparency Register.

About

Dialogues économiques is a digital journal published by the Aix-Marseille School of Economics (AMU, CNRS, EHESS, Centrale Méditerranée). A gateway between academic research and society, Dialogues économiques provides all citizens with the keys to economic reasoning. Articles are published every two weeks.

In practice, lobbying takes many forms: providing expertise, issuing recommendations and taking part in parliamentary hearings. In principle, any civically-minded citizen can write to their local member of parliament. In reality, few individuals are capable of delivering a “turnkey” amendment – like those that were sometimes adopted almost word-for-word during the examination of the 2025 Social Security Financing Billl1.

The resources available to an ordinary citizen bear no comparison with those of professional lobby groups, with their budget, in-house experts, and salaried specialists in interest representation. Nor are all lobby groups equal, and it is precisely this imbalance that raises questions.

A topical issue

Last November, the European Parliament adopted the so-called “Omnibus” directive. Behind this ambiguous label lies a package of measures that weaken two directives passed in 2024: the CSRD and the CS3D, which imposed social and environmental reporting requirements and a duty of vigilance on companies operating in Europe. In concrete terms, firms were required to monitor, prevent, and remedy the environmental and human impacts of their activities across their entire value chain.