ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the different persuasion, bargaining and lobbying strategies that small states can use to influence European Union (EU) policies. It presents descriptive statistics on the frequency to which states use capacity-building and shaping strategies, based on data stemming from a survey on negotiation activities and success of EU member states in day-to-day negotiations. It explores that the differences in the frequency to which member states apply negotiation strategies are considerable. Denmark, Ireland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Finland and Sweden are activity leaders while others, such as Greece, Cyprus, Estonia, Bulgaria or Malta, are among the least active states. The chapter shows that while the aggregated activity level of all states hardly varies between economic, agricultural and environmental policy, there is policy-country variation. Moreover, some strategies, such as general arguing, bargaining and joining of coalitions are used more frequently than others, such as honest brokerage, lobbying the European Parliament or initiating coalitions.
