BEST DIGITAL TOOLS FOR EU PUBLIC AFFAIRS

The best public affairs operators know how to employ digital tools to complement their real world activity. Here are some of the best in Brussels subscription and free digital tools

Subscription Tools

1. DeHavilland EU (www1.dehavillandeurope.eu): DeHavilland EU provides EU political intelligence, EU monitoring, bespoke research and consulting services that are specifically tailored to your interests and needs. Their services are designed to help you influence policy and/or inform your strategy by anticipating change so you can better manage the risks facing your organization. Based in Brussels, their dedicated team is your partner to become a proactive stakeholder helping you to address relevant issues.
2. DODS EU (www.dodsinformation.com): Monitoring saves time and effort in monitoring developments at European Union level by using experts on the ground in Brussels. They deliver up-to-the-minute unbiased news and information tailored to your specific demands to ensure you have everything you need at your fingertips. DODS service includes: Alerts: tailored real time alerts delivered to your inbox; Briefings: unique coverage of European Parliament committees and plenary sessions, Council deliberations, Commission conferences and other key events; Looking forward agendas: comprehensive calendars of institutions and stakeholders events; Newsletters: bespoke daily, weekly and monthly newsletters; Hotline: direct interaction with their consultants, research and analysis service to answer your specific questions about the EU; Stakeholder mapping.
3. Fiscal Note (www.fiscalnote.com): Started out as EU Issue Tracker. Evolved into Shungham. After joining FiscalNote in 2018, became FiscalNote Europe. FiscalNote offers a modern technology solution for managing global policy and corporate issues, streamlining data management, engaging stakeholders, collaborating across the enterprise, and centralising knowledge management. FiscalNote is a leading technology company, most recently recognised as a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer. FiscalNote serves over 5000 organisations ranging from some of the largest companies in the world to trade associations, governments and nonprofits. From legislative and regulatory monitoring to stakeholder management, grassroots and digital advocacy, FiscalNote’s issues management solutions help organisations of all shapes and sizes effectively manage the impact of the outside world.
4. Mlex (www.mlexmarketinsight.com): MLex is an independent media organisation providing exclusive market insight, analysis and commentary on regulatory risk. Their customers, the world’s leading law firms, corporations, advisory firms and regulators, rely on their reporting to ensure they are well positioned to take advantage of the opportunities posed by regulatory change as well as to mitigate the risks. MLex has a track record of uncovering regulatory risk before it breaks in other news outlets. Offering up-to-the-minute coverage of regulatory threats and opportunities from the perspectives of M&A, antitrust and trade defence, as well as data privacy and security, they also specialize in sector-specific regulation across TMT, energy and financial services.
5. One Policy Place (www.onepolicyplace.com): Co-founders Luisa Frumenzi, Mark Wilson and team have built One Policy Place (OPP) into an excellent Brussels-based service with four key features: Newsfeed – The Newsfeed enables you to filter and manage content on One Policy Place, according to the policy issues that are critical to you and your organisation. This saves you time and ensures you remain on top of your brief; Pipeline – They bring together into one place, key dates, documents & debates on procedures. The Pipeline covers all publicly available information from the EU institutions ensuring at the click of a button you know the state of play of any dossier; Planner – They curate all EU institutional meetings, public events, & activities, enabling you to keep track of key dates and plan ahead. OPP customers also benefit from OPP’s vast network to publicise your events; Mentions – Mentions is a unique tool giving you insight into member state positions, Commission views, and MEP interventions in meetings OPP have published. Mentions also allows you to track products & keywords in order to assess regulatory risk in your industry.
6. Quorum (www.quorum.us): Quorum is software built for public affairs, providing one place for stakeholder engagement, legislative tracking, and grassroots advocacy. Customers enjoy four key features: Leading Public Affairs CRM; Very Comprehensive Database of Legislative Information; Powerful Analytics To Inform Your Strategy; Integrated Email Tool
7. POLITICO PRO( www.politicopro.com) POLITICO Pro is POLITICO Europe’s premium policy intelligence service for professionals. Fusing the power of technology with the power of journalism, Pro combines the expertise of a 70+ international newsroom with innovative technology and data analysis, providing a one stop shop solution for policy professionals. From daily morning newsletters, real time alerts, breaking scoops, and deep analysis to legislative tracking, key word monitoring, vote mapping breakdowns and much more, Pro helps organizations keep one step ahead of the policy developments impacting their industry, clients or members. POLITICO Pro serves many thousand policy experts and decision-makers from over 850 organizations in 28 countries. Subscribers include EU and national government, corporations, trade associations, consultancies, law firms, and NGOs.

USEFUL FREE TOOLS

Euractiv (www.euractiv.com), New Europe (www.neweurope.eu), Euronews (www.euronews.com), EU Observer (www.euobserver.com) and Politico (www.politico.eu) are some of the leaders of free to consume news online sites that rely on advertising and sponsorship for funding. In addition there are a number of free-of-charge EU-oriented sites that might provide the information you are looking for, including

1. POLITICO (www.politico.eu): POLITICO is a global nonpartisan politics and policy news organization, launched in Europe in April 2015. POLITICO Europe is a joint-venture between POLITICO LLC, based in the USA and Axel Springer, the leading digital publisher in Europe. With operations based in Brussels and additional offices in London, Berlin, Paris, Rome, and Warsaw, POLITICO connects the dots between global power centers. Its journalism lives online at politico.eu.
2. EU Insider (www.eu-insider.com): EU Insider monitors all EU Institutions, stakeholders and media and puts you in control of what you want to hear about and when. EU Insider is a free monitoring service. Sign up to as many (or as few) topics as you want from a list of ten and they will send you daily or weekly summaries of what you need to know. They track hundreds of sources to bring you the most relevant content, with links back to the original articles. A professional-grade monitoring service, all completely free.
3. PoliMonitor (www.polimonitor.com): PoliMonitor is a search tool that allows users to filter out the noise and quickly find out: what are parliamentarians saying on Twitter. Polimonitor allows for near-instant monitoring of what parliamentarians around the world are saying, in 36 countries and in 19 languages. With automated data collation, instant alerts and a built-in report builder, this is social media monitoring made easy.
4. The Wonk (www.thewonk.eu): The Wonk at thewonk.eu makes it easier to browse and receive email reports, insights, videos from political analysts and policy wonks, both in Brussels and across the EU. However, The Wonk’s search function needs updating and the founders have not been able to finance it yet.
5. VoteWatch: VoteWatch at votewatch.eu is the leading non-partisan organisation specialised in combining big data sets of EU political data with cutting-edge expertise in order to provide the best insights into EU politics. They provide comprehensive mapping of the positions of EU Governments and of EU Parliamentarians on any key topic. They also deliver forecasts on the outcome of various pieces of EU legislation. VoteWatch Europe is coordinated by a professional team that combines expertise in EU affairs, statistics and digital communication.