EUROPEAN BUSINESS ORGANISATIONS (EBO) WORLDWIDE NETWORK

The EBO Worldwide Network was created in 2001 between representatives of EU business associations in non-EU countries and specific interest groups from the European Commission. They are mostly privately funded representations of EU businesse in Argentina, Armenia, Brazil, Chile, China, Australia, Hong Kong, Macedonia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Ukraine, United States of America, Vietnam.

1. Grupo Empresarial Unión Europea en Argentina
2. European Union Chamber of Commerce in Armenia
3. Federation of the European Bilateral Chamber of Commerce & Industry in Brazil
4. EuroChile
5. European Union Chamber of Commerce in China
6. European-Australian Business Council
7. European Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong
8. European Business Organisation of Macedonia
9. European Business Group (EBG) India
10. EuroCham Indonesia
11. European Business Community Japan
12. European Business Association of Kazakhstan
13. European Union Chamber of Commerce in Korea
14. EU-Malaysia Chamber of Commerce & Industry
15. European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines
16. Association of European Businesses (AEB), Russia
17. European Chamber of Commerce Singapore
18. European Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka
19. ECCT, Taiwan
20. ECC, Thailand
21. European Business Association (EBA), Ukraine
22. European-American Business Council (EABC), USA
23. The European Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam

The EBO Network which extends in more than 20 countries over 3 continents (Asia-Pacific, Europe and the Americas) aims at providing a lobbying, information and networking platform for European businesses Worldwide. EBO is composed of chambers of commerce and business associations, which represent primarily big companies operating in manufacturing, commerce, banking, energy etc.. In several cases, individual companies including Deutsche Bank, Bayer, Deloitte or British Airways belong to a number of different chambers and associations at the same time.

EBO represents the interests of European companies abroad. They actively organise briefings, meetings and programmes for incoming and outgoing missions (business, MS delegations, European Parliament).

EBO has significant influence over the Commission and Parliament receiving high-profile praise and repeated requests from the institutions for EBO’s input. The Commission very much welcomes pan-European business organisations to mutually grow their commercial networks and more effectively represent their interests to the governments of their host countries. The EBOs offer important and timely insights about local economic conditions and opportunities to the Commission and the EU Member States. The EBO’s have valuable expertise in third markets, from which the EU can profit.

EBO has close ties with the European Parliament’s International Trade committee (INTA). In 2010 EBO established a Brussels-based resource centre, because an office in Brussels will create greater visibility. EBO’s Brussels office is now located at the same address as BusinessEurope. One of the aims for the resource centre was to engender co-operation with industry stakeholders based in Europe including BusinessEurope.

The EBO expert group provides an official forum for companies to tell the EU exactly which issues they would like the EU to lobby third country governments about, in order to gain more favourable business conditions.