EU Decision-Making on Inter-Institutional Agreements: Defining (Common) Rules of Conduct for European Lobbyists and Public Servants

The introduction of a new provision in the Lisbon Treaty allowing European Union (EU) institutions to forge binding inter-institutional agreements (IIAs) draws attention to the limited research that exists on these instruments of EU governance. This article contributes to the development of this literature by examining why IIAs are possible in some cases but not in others. It does this by presenting empirical evidence on two cases: on lobby regulation; and on the regulation of the conduct of EU public servants. In the first case the proposed IIA was successfully concluded; in the second, it was not. In contrasting these cases this article explains these differing outcomes with reference to the combined effect of shared inter-institutional values and the mutual interests, and the potential for operational compromise. It concludes that shared values and mutual interests are a necessary but not a sufficient foundation for for the successful inter-institutional decision-making.