CHANGES TO TAKE NOTE OF IN BRUSSELS LOBBYING

 General

1. Lobbyists are developing new skills. Speakers of German are more prized- close to par with English-speakers and far more valuable than French speakers.
2. Brussels’ best-known lobbyists still hail from the old Member States, while the new Member States are under-represented in the Brussels’ corps.

 Corporate

1. Companies have increased the number of in-house EU specialists that they employ and new corporate giants e.g. Samsung, Tata, Huawei, Aegon, CA Technologies have opened Brussels offices.
2. The arrival of U.S. tech giants has had a big impact on the sector.
3. Companies are increasingly seeing EU public affairs as strategic (how can we stop this from happening? How do we build a competitive advantage from this? Commercial threats or opportunities can variously arise from reforms to laws on, for instance, data protection, the environment or tobacco.
4. Companies have learnt to soften their public face.

 Trade Associations

1. Trade associations have increased their number of employees. The EU offices are increasingly staffed by mid-career EU affairs specialists, rather than businessmen at the end of their careers.

Consultancies

1. Consultancies are facing more competition from rival providers of services.
2. Obtaining documents from the Commission is easier thanks to development in technology and transparency.
3. Media organisations are now offering legislative tracking services and specialist news feeds that encroach on what was once the consultancies’ exclusive territory.
4. Business-oriented consultancies are also competing with traditional public affairs firms for clients.

 Law Firms

1. The negotiations on an EU-US Transatlantic Trade Agreement (TTIP) have given further a further boost to U.S. law firms, already well-entrenched . U.S. law firms have continued to move into Brussels, extending their expertise in government affairs that has been developed in the US. They see an advantage in offering services to clients on both sides of the Atlantic, rather than sharing clients with European firms.

NGOS

1. NGOs now hire policy specialists to navigate the technocracy of Brussels. In some cases, they are assisted by EU funding with the European Commission feeling the need to counter-weight corporate interests.

Tools of the Trade

1. EU lobbying campaigns now engage lobbyists in the new Member States in an effort to influence their governments’ votes in the Council.
2. Technology has made it easier to keep track of the lobby, as well as for certain campaigns to achieve scale and for others to be creative with social media campaigns.
3. Interest representation is often more aggressive and also more sophisticated.
4. Some firms experiment with pseudo-grassroots (or astroturf).
5. Some firms bombard MEPs with calls and emails.
6. There is a growing recognition of the value of forming single-issue alliances.