Trade associations play specific roles to influence policies, which include: facilitating dialogue, engaging and advising policymakers and advocating for a policy. Most trade associations at national or EU level play more than one role in the policy influencing process. Advising policymakers seems to be the most frequent role but it is often combined with other roles.

Trade associations engage with and advise policymakers either upon the request from policymakers or they may play this role even when it is not explicitly solicited.

The main purpose of the job of EU Policy Advisor is to take the lead in developing and advising on the European dimension of a wide and varied range of subjects within his/her field. This is a challenging role because the EU Policy Advisor has to take responsibility for giving expert analysis and strategic policy advice. It also includes designing and implementing an effective public policy advocacy strategy to influence key policymakers at EU level.

There are roughly 1,500 European Trade Associations that play a prominent role in EU public affairs. They may be divided into 3 categories: Large, Medium and Small. The main challenge for European Associations is finding consensus between corporate members who compete with each other for market share, and national associations with very different cultures. In the wake of the financial crisis there is an expectation for stronger association leadership among their members.

The public's unhappiness with official Washington has reached new heights, according to a new NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll. A whopping 83 percent of Americans disapprove of Congress' job performance, an all-time high in the survey's history. And nearly six-in-10 voters (57%) say they'd vote to replace every single member of Congress if they had such an option on their ballot, another all-time high.

Besides European interest groups, national trade associations groups also lobby actively in Brussels. For national trade associations , there are two alternatives.  They either approach their  national politicians or parties that represent their interests in Brussels or they engage directly in public policy advocacy. They may also form alliances to bundle their interests. By pooling resources, national trade associations may share and coordinate information, contacts and political positions effectively. In addition, they may manage to create broad coalitions.

Unemployment hits record high unemployment across the Eurozone at 12.2% leaving nearly 20 million people out of work. The figure in parenthesis shows the percentage of unemployed among people under 25 years of age. 1 in 4 Europeans who want work cannot find a job. Rocketing unemployment particularly among the young may feel resentment against the Europ, and result in grave social consequences. Citizens may turn their backs on Europe and the constrction of the European project.

In order to evaluate the efficiency of your trade association’s public policy advocacy, the following seven categories are considered: 1. Location-Resources-Mandate;  2. Infrastructure and Legislative Monitoring;  3. Networks;  4. Interaction between the Secretariat and the Members; 5. Communication;  6. Influence-Public Policy Advocacy and 7. Public Policy Advocacy Structure.  There are a total of 63 questions.

Even if the position taken by public policy advocates is based on excellent research, as it often is, the equally-necessary work of translating this research into relevant, constructive and realistic policy options is not often done – in part because governments themselves are hardly ever entirely open about the parameters of decision making, even if they know themselves. Everyone, to some extent, is fumbling in the dark.

As of July 13 2013, our website (aalep.eu)  is currently ranked #18,823,895 in the World among over 30 million websites based on Alexa Traffic Ranking.

What is remarkable, however, is that we’ve attained a traffic rank of 3,245 among users in Belgium, where 94% of our audience is located. And among Brussels users the site is relatively popular since it is ranked 652.

Public Policy Advocacy is any effort to in influence public policy by providing information, speaking to decision makers, demonstrating benefits for policy change and other such activities that encourage the adoption of the desired policy change. Public Policy Advocacy requires organization, information, preparation and communication. Public Policy Advocates research and analyze proposed laws, rules, policies or regulations; monitor developments; attend hearings; furnish periodic updates; educate policymakers, staff, and colleagues, and work with other interested parties.