Pressure or Information? Lobbying for Binding Renewable Energy Targets in theEuropeanUnion

Abstract This article analyzes the E uropean renewable energy industry's capacity for pressure‐based and information‐based lobbying and its strategies in two lobbying efforts: for a legally binding target of 20 percent renewable energy by 2020 (a proposal adopted by the E uropean C ouncil in M arch 2007) and for binding interim targets as a means to secure effective implementation of the 2020 target (a proposal that was not adopted). It finds that the industry has the capacity for information‐based lobbying but very limited capacity for pressure‐based lobbying. The article also discusses the effectiveness of the two lobbying types. It argues that information‐based lobbying is particularly effective early in the decision‐making process, and hypothesizes that early information‐based lobbying may compensate for limited capacity for pressure‐based lobbying and for information‐based lobbying that takes place later in the decision‐making process, but concludes that this strategy would have been unlikely to be effective in the second case.