Sinking the market opening of port services : when losers in European processes succeed in challenging liberalization ; Le naufrage de l'ouverture à la concurrence des services portuaires : quand des 'perdants' de l'Europe réussissent à contester la libéralisation (2001-2017)

This PhD thesis aims at completing and broadening knowledge regarding the resources and practices of interest representatives operating in the European administrative and political field. It deals with “intermittent” interest representatives active in Brussels, namely actors who only occasionally invest in the field of Eurocracy and for whom the representation of interests is not the main professional activity. It questions how actors whose resources are not suited and know- how-to-be and know-how of the representation of interests in Brussels are weak manage to have an impact on the legislation they are subject to. This research work first highlights that this type of actor can act in Brussels by converting resources acquired in other administrative and political fields. Nevertheless, it confirms that in order to obtain results congruent with their preferences, it is necessary for them to hold resources and implement practices in line with the expectations of European administrative and political actors. It then tackles the repertoires of action to which actors mobilizing in Brussels resort. It thus brings to light the complementarity of protest actions (strikes, stop-work, blockades, demonstrations) and bureaucratized forms of action. The former allows the latter to bear fruit and the actors deploying them to take a place in the decision-making process that they would not have obtained by resorting only to the latter. Finally, it shows that the legislative agenda and the results of previous mobilizations condition the investment of interest groups in Brussels. This research also reveals elements regarding the negotiation logics and voting attitudes of MEPs and Member State representatives in the negotiation spaces of the Parliament and the Council. It reveals that although MEPs can table amendments that go against the political line of their group, they tend to respect group discipline during votes in parliamentary committees and plenary sessions. It also shows that the Member State holding the Council ...