John Kingdon is one of those Professors whose ideas you are likely using, even if you don’t know who he is.
He is the man behind the idea of the ‘windows of opportunity’ in the policy cycle. This happens when a problem, policy and politics come together. When these three things happen at the same time, change happens.
We are about to enter into one of those stages.
Are you ready for the next Window of Opportunity?
By the close of 2024, we will have a set of new European Commissioners.
Around the 3rd week in September 2023, President von der Leyen is going to give her ‘State of the Union, followed in mid-October 2023 by the Work Programme.
This could well be her last hurrah. Operationally, important legislative proposals will need to go out the door by May 2023 to give them just under a year to get adopted by this EP before they have elections in May 2024.
The political clock is ticking to complete proposals inside the Commission and get them out the door for speedy political adoption, or at least a first reading agreement.
Getting Ready for 2024
Now should be the time to prepare for the narrowest and most important opportunity to get your issue taken up in the next Commission.
What strikes me is that the political die is cast in a few months after the election, starting before the appointment of the Commission President, subsequent finalising of the political agenda for the next five years and enshrinement in the Political Guidelines and Mission Letters. This is a time when most of Brussels is still obsessing about the whose been elected to the EP and who is going to be nominated as a Commissioner.
What is useful to bear in mind how early on political direction is firmed up. The deviation from the level of the ambition and granularity of the Mission letters and subsequent Work Programmes is startlingly low. Wars and famines don’t change things much.
Speaking with one of the architects for a new Commission agenda, it is interesting to see how much of it occurs with little stakeholder interest. EU leaders, through their Roadmap, and the Political Groups, through their manifesto commitments, play an important role in shaping direction and specifics.
But, at the moment, when a few officials are looking for tangible, ready-to-go, finely tuned proposals to co-opt most of public policy, it appears most of Brussels is fast asleep.
What To Do
John Kingdon writes about having your pet project filed away for when the right political and policy moment comes up. You need a one-pager, powerful and objective evidence, examples and a draft legislative proposal ready to hand when that moment comes up, ready for it to be co-opted. You’ll need trusted relationships with the people holding the pen in Brussels and in the key political capitals and political groups.
You don’t want to wake up reading the new Mission Letters and see that your prized issue is not on the agenda. If that happens, you may as well hibernate for the next five years.