I was back in Brussels last week for the second time in two weeks. As ever there was a lot going on in our busy and rapidly expanding FH Brussels universe. It seems that we ran out of desks some time ago as I ended up in the playpen with our great body of undergrad interns*.
During my visit I was reminded of two very important points for reaching your public affairs objectives in the E.U. whether you are a corporate, trade association or indeed NGO. These points may seem obvious (especially to any visiting U.S. readers of this blog), but it would appear they still need repeating.
1. Be as strong outside the Bubble as you are within it
Having a crack team in Brussels is all well and good (FH can help here), but if you’re really going to shape what’s happening in the E.U. processes you will need strong teams in key Member States (happily we can help here too) working in a coordinated fashion on E.U. policy. After all, one half of our legislature is based in Member State capitals (the perm reps are important, but decisions are still taken back home in many cases) and as our MEP survey last year showed, many of our Members of the European Parliament look homeward (media, influencers) for inspiration.
This is of course easy to say, hard to do. Lack of resources and rigidity of your organisation’s structure may make it difficult. Your national level teams may well report to business units focused on the market rather than the ever ephemeral Europe, if of course they exist at all. You are not alone if your organization relies on business managers at a market level to do public affairs as an evening job. Even if there is a dotted line between Brussels and the national capitals, when push comes to shove national priorities still are likely to take priority over European legislation. It’s only natural. There is also a tendency in Brussels to, well, think only about Brussels.
My advice; seek ‘owned’ teams in markets where you are strong (home market, key markets – normally the big five) and plug and play with trade bodies and consultants elsewhere as needed.
2. It’s the media stupid
U.S. readers will be shocked to hear this advice, but Brussels based actors need to keep reminding themselves that while media may not drive the agenda within the Bubble, it sure does at a national level. As such, not only do those on the ground at Member State level need to be strong enough and motivated enough to liaise directly with government on E.U. issues, they also need the ability to drive and manage public policy issues in the other channels that influence the people we’re trying to persuade. Meeting the right folks at Member State level with solid facts and argumentation counts for close to zero if the media wind is blowing around your policy issue and against you. The policymaker may agree with you, but politically they just won’t be able to support you. Going to see them again will have little effect.
Again, this is a hard ask. Other channels of communications (earned and paid media, online, third parties) do not tend to be the remit of public affairs in organizations in Europe, nevermind the E.U. public affairs function out of Brussels! Nevertheless in terms of shaping the policy environment they’re an essential part of our toolkit. As such, public affairs functions need to start making a case that all communications functions (including public affairs) need to be audience centric, rather than tactic dependent. Either public affairs needs to have the specialists within it that can work all the aspects of communication towards policymakers or they need the access to others within the organization that can help and are directed to do so as part of their day jobs.
In summary, if you wish to be effective in Brussels (1) ensure that you have a strong national network to support your Brussels based activities and (2) ensure that your public affairs function is audience centric rather than tactic dependent.
All this will hopefully be common sense. But it surprises me how often it is not. Here’s the hoping that this little reminder has proved useful to some.
James
*Thanks to Rosalyn, Rosie, Irina, Freddie and Kamila for making me feel welcome in their space. Proud to see so many great undergrad interns now part of the program I put in place.
If you want to become an undergrad intern in at FH Brussels you need to get your course leader to contact our office in Brussels directly about the program. They should do so now. We only accept applications via partner universities.
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