Yeah, it is indeed external influence which somewhat competes with democracy. What’s really bad is the reaching of consensus within the government via mostly trust in designated experts, instead of the voters individually studying the topic.

Ok makes sense, we then have basically indirect influence of the majority via trust in smaller groups of designated specialists.

Ok and they still need majority vote… often, at least? In which case there seem to be a lot of politicians who are just misinformed (if the lobbying has negative consequences), which doesn’t relate to lobbying specifically but their general decision making.

So mostly not a consequence specifically of lobbying, if the majority votes due to actual conviction. Rather of disinformation/laziness, which will affect non-lobby initiated proposals too.

The part with the smaller committees sounds anti-democratic. The later is a different problem (politicians being misinformed/lazy is not specific to lobbying)

So the lobbying is, on each particular instance, of potentially 100+ people (in the case of EU parliament 300 or so +), likely across parties? That seems difficult to organize, at first sight.

But why do individual politicians or groups have so the power to get these things through? Is it not subjected to a majority vote or something?

The reality of the situation is more or less clear, but it helps to understand how things are supposed to work. They make their case and then what? does the audience decide on its own? Otherwise it seems difficult to buy the entire… voting majority?

I keep reading about lobbying. I don’t fully understand how it works. Are there requirements for disclosure, approval and public transparency, or is this just something individual politicians or groups can do just like that?