Short-term volatility in the EU interest community

We know remarkably little about the volatility of vital rates of organizations lobbying the European Union (EU), in large part because of the limited and problematic nature of data on the EU interest community. After discussing these problems, we try to develop a better assessment of the short term – 2003 to 2009 – volatility of birth and death rates of the EU interest community using data from the Consultation, the European Commission and Civil Society (CONECCS) lobby registration system of the European Commission and the door pass system for lobbyists of the European Parliament. We find that the EU interest system is surprisingly volatile even over the short term.