Competing for policy: Lobbying in the EU wholesale roaming regulation

Abstract

This work examines the informational lobbying prior to the proposal drafting by the European Commission on the wholesale roaming regulation through the lens of the framework of political market. We employ a mixed approach that combines topic modelling, multivariate regression, and qualitative text analysis based on the textual replies to the public consultation launched by the Commission prior to the first draft of the regulation proposal. Our analysis identifies two main topics of debate and discovers diverse opinions within each topic. Regression analysis that explains alignments of preferences between the Commission and the stakeholders does not point to any evidence that the Commission consistently took the same positions as stakeholders of certain characteristics. Instead, this work argues that lobbying pressure was not effective in such a heterogeneous industry and the Commission was able to navigate easily the diverse interests and to pursue its own policy ambition.