At present, there are around 3,000 different interest groups that are formally recognized by the European Union (Kirchner 2011). These interest groups represent a variety of interests and vary in the degree of influence they actually have over the policy-making process. These groups represent the interests of multiple sectors of social and economic life within the European Union. Interests range from AGRICULTURE to BIG BUSINESS to HUMANITARIAN AID. Truly pluralist in nature, these groups compete, directly or indirectly, with each other for influence over legislation produced by the European Union. There is no doubt that these interest groups within the European Union play an important role in the decision-making process. The thriving community of interest groups within the European Union has both beneficial and detrimental impacts on the democratic quality of the European legislative process. By providing an overview of interest groups and their influence in decision-making and comparing the role of interest groups within the European Union to those in the United States, I will demonstrate the positive and negative qualities of the participation of interest groups in the democratic process. In this article, I will argue that interest groups are indeed a double-edged sword when it comes to affecting the democratic quality of European Union legislation. Before we can adequately address this topic, I believe it is necessary to clarify a general definition of an interest group. . For the purposes of this article, I will refer to Rainer Eising's definition of an interest group, as I found it the broadest and most relevant to the argument made in the middle of this article .... ...interest group lobbying far outweighs the negative; however, the negative implications are of paramount importance. If we compare the current status of the full role of interest groups in the United States with the emerging status of interest groups within the European Union, we can see the dangers of not addressing to negative divergences. My conclusion is that the improvement in the democratic deficit demonstrated by interest groups so far in the Union has proven the importance of interest group lobbying. Given this, I believe it is essential that the European Union works to mitigate the harmful effects of political lobbying in order to ensure optimal democratic legitimacy in the future. The fact remains that interest groups are currently considerably improving the democratic quality of European Union legislation..