Lobbyists vie for a bigger slice of Europe’s fastest-growing market

Date: 03/02/2000

There are now some 10,000 people working in Brussels whose sole aim is to influence the decisions taken by EU policy-makers, and the competition for business is fierce. Simon Coss examines the reasons for this rapid expansion in Brussels' lobbying community and the role it plays in the decision-making process

TO SOME, they are industry stooges out to pervert the course of EU law-making to suit their paymasters' nefarious ends. To others, they speak for those whose voices would otherwise never be heard in the Union's corridors of power.

But while opinions are divided over the desirability of one of Brussels' fastest-growing professions, one thing seems certain. Lobbyists are here to stay.

There are now some 10,000 people based in the EU 'capital' whose sole aim is to influence the behaviour of decision-makers in the Union's 'big three' institutions - the European Commission, European Parliament and Council of Ministers.

They come in all shapes and sizes, and represent practically every interest group you can think of. Some work for large industries concerned about the possible effect of planned environmental or labour laws on their activities. Others approach the environmental debate from the other side, working for green organisations such as Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth. Yet more plead in favour of causes as diverse as women's rights, the disabled, farmers or the building trade.

But what they all have in common is a desire to ensure that laws drawn up in Brussels have the most positive effect possible on the group they represent.

The explosion in the number of lobbyists working in Brussels over the past decade reflects the increasing number of policy areas the Union is becoming involved in - and hence the number of companies and organisations affected by its decisions which want to influence the policy-making process.

"The EU has become a central point of decision-making on many global issues and consequently Brussels has attracted people who want to influence decisions," said Caroline Wunnerlich, managing director of political consultants GPC, which now employs 40 people in Brussels - ten times more than just eight years ago. This trend seems certain to continue in future as the Union expands its borders east-wards and turns its attention to even more policy areas.

But the competition for business among the numerous Brussels-based consultancies, public affairs companies and legal firms fighting for a bigger slice of this ever-expanding cake is fierce.

The basic prerequisite for anyone hoping to capitalise on this growth in demand is, according to those already plying their trade in Brussels, an in-depth knowledge of precisely how proposals are drawn up and decided upon by the EU's institutions.

This is no small order as the Union has not one but three different ways of agreeing legislation - known as the consultation, cooperation and co-decision procedures in EU jargon. Each approach has its own particular quirks and foibles, and each has a different set of 'weak points' where lobbying can be used to best effect.

In addition, the Union has been built on a bewildering array of dense legal texts, ranging from its founding treaties to the hundreds of judgements churned out every year by the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, and any lobbyist worth his or her salt must be au fait with those relevant to the area in which their clients' work.

"It is a definite advantage if you come into the profession knowing how the EU works," explains Christopher Burghardt, account director at international communications consultancy Hill & Knowlton. "Many of my colleagues have been to the College of Europe or have done similar studies, and it is certainly something that is considered favourable when we are recruiting."

Would-be lobbyists also need an extensive knowledge of the specific policy areas which they hope to work on, given that much of the Union's legislative work involves complex technical proposals on such diverse issues as water quality, carbon dioxide emissions, copyright or data protection. A legal background is also a help, as modern lobbyists can spend months trying to get just one or two words changed in a draft text which may seem insignificant to the layman but are vital to the industry they represent.

But Burghardt says there are some areas where members of his profession cannot be expected to know everything. "We are not scientists and of course there are some issues - particularly concerning complex scientific questions - where we have to rely on the client's expertise," he explains.

In such cases, the lobbyists' task is to use their understanding of the decision-making process, their network of contacts and their horse-trading skills to bring pressure to bear on Commission officials, MEPs and government ministers.

Effective lobbying of the EU institutions therefore requires finely-tuned political antennae and an ability to make swift judgements about when to keep up the pressure for concessions and when to back away. Sticking to demands which clearly have no chance of being accepted is an ultimately futile exercise, as the Save Duty Free lobby found out to its cost as it battled to save the travellers' perk in the late Nineties.

"Sometimes it is important to take a step back from all of the procedural stuff. It is of course important to know how things are supposed to work in theory but it is also important to know how they work in practice too," says one seasoned lobbyist. This also involves knowing when to change tack or re-think a particular lobbying strategy.

Successful lobbyists also argue that the most effective way to try to change planned legislation is to adopt a multi-pronged approach which concentrates on all three legislative institutions. Campaigns which focus on just one of them - most commonly the easily accessible and publicity-hungry Parliament - may cause a seemingly impressive stir, but tend to fail at the end of the day.

"The important thing is to know which institution holds the key to a particular debate at a specific time. There is not much point concentrating your efforts on the Council when legislation being drawn up using co-decision is going through its second reading in the European Parliament," said one.

Lobbyists also point to the differences between the EU's approach to law-making and that of other legislative bodies around the world. In particular, they warn against trying to use the sort of aggressive in-your-face tactics favoured by US lobbyists working in Washington.

"In the US, lobbyists are expected to jump up and down and make a lot of noise but that sort of approach just does not work here," said one seasoned Brussels campaigner, who added that EU decision-makers tended to respond more positively to gentle persuasion than to being 'yelled at'.

Experts say there are a number of reasons for this. Key among these is the fact that in Brussels, interest groups are trying to get their message across to 15 different governments rather than one single administration, as is the case on Capitol Hill. In addition, EU legislation tends to be agreed through a relatively unconfrontational process of negotiation and compromise building.

"What we try to do here is build balanced arguments that show we understand all sides in a particular debate," says Burghardt. "What we are trying to do as lobbyists is make people understand where we are coming from and to present arguments that perhaps they had not considered before."

Those on the receiving end of the lobbyists' attentions have a somewhat ambivalent attitude towards the activities of the professional persuaders.

EU officials and politicians acknowledge that they can feed useful information into the debate surrounding a particular legislative initiative. But many are worried that the policy-makers sometimes rely too heavily on partisan outside advice.

One former Parliament official expressed concern, for example, at what he saw as the undue influence some larger industrial lobby groups could have on MEPs.

He explained that when parliamentarians were being asked to vote in a single committee session on large numbers of amendments to a planned law, the only people who could explain the technical details to them were often lobbyists. "I have seen legislation go through that has been peppered with what amount to industry amendments," he said.

He added that companies and industry lobby groups tended to have deep enough pockets to employ a battery of people to work on a particular policy initiative, while their counterparts in non-governmental organisations could often only afford to employ one or two staff.

Major feature. There are now some 10,000 people working in Brussels whose sole aim is to influence the decisions taken by EU policy-makers, and the competition for business is fierce. Article examines the reasons for this rapid expansion in Brussels' lobbying community and the role it plays in the decision-making process.