Modelling a European Decision Making Process with Heterogeneous Public Opinion and Lobbying: The Case of the Authorization Procedure for Placing Genetically Modified Organisms on the Market

The paper presents a multi-agent model simulating the European decision-making procedure for authorizing voluntay release into the environment and the placing on the market of Genetically Modified Organisms (OGM). The model illustrates the political links between public opinions, lobbying groups and elected representatives at the national scale and at the European scale. It compares the procedure which was defined by the European 1990/220 Directive in 1990 with the new procedure which has replaced it in 2001 when the 2001/18 Directive was voted. The objective is to explore the impact of the innovations of the new Directive on the lobbying efficiency of NGOs and biotechnology firms and to assess if Multi-Agent simulation can help to improve our understanding of collective opinion and political markets dynamics.