Creating a Trinity to win in Brussels

Winning in Brussels is not easy.  It is not easy because the skill set you need to bring to the table to bring about change is not easy to assemble.

Over the years, I have seen many campaigns fail. You don’t tend to see that campaigns that fail for a simple reason. No-body really noticed them.  They tend to fail to bring three skills to the table:

Good issue experts are academics and scientists. They are great for building the position, bringing the evidence to the table, and filling in the gaps.  They are really important to have on board. Many organisations have a chief scientiic adviser and  issue leads with Ph.Ds and post-docs for that very reason.

Just because you are an issue expert does not mean you are persuasive in a meeting with politicians,  know how to get the right  proposal out the door, or come across as half  coherent in a TV interview.  I’ve worked with issue experts who became polished spokepersons, at ease with politicians, regulators, stakeholderrs and the media. And, I’ve worked with some who just should not have been allowed out in public, even accompanied.

The political campaigners  is a special species.  They sprinkle political gold dust and take a moribund issue and turn into something real people become interested in. They deconstruct the Gobbledegook of the issue experts and turn it in political poetry for politicians, the media and  the real world.

Without them, any campaign is neutered  at the start.  There are not many who can play beyond their national borders. The few who can are gold dust. They’ll turn the arcane into a story that hits the newsstands and shift  public and political opinion to your side.

The lobbyist helps turn want you want into the policy or law  that gets adopted. You can have the evidence to back your case, media and public opinion,  but if you can’t turn into a new policy or law, you don’t get anything.  A lot of campaigns fail because they can’t lobby effectively. Some just don’t turn up, some are unknown, and some are plain rude.

If you can’t harness the windows of opportunity, know when to intervene, how to make your case and with whom, you will will fall down.

It is not likely that one person will be able to fill all 3 roles. I’ve found the issue expert is a stand alone. Some lobbyists can campaign, but not many.  They may think they can, but they can’t.

The tricky thing in Europe is you need to be able to bring those skills to both Brussels and several national capitals, at the same time.

If you want to change what happens in Brussels, you need to change the positions, decisions and votes in the the national capitals. For the foreseeable future, the key decisions are going to be made in the national capitals.

There are two ways to do this.

The best way to do this to adapt your campaign for your national capital. What drives the debate in Brussels may well be different in Warsaw or Rome.

An ideal is to have a separate local issue exert, political campaigner, and lobbyist in each of your target countries.  I’ve worked on campaigns that had this set up. It works well. It tends to work only for pan-European organisations who also have that skill set in each of their countires.  Only a few NGOs and companies have that capacity.

The alternative is to take your campaign on the road using Brussels as a hub to organise your efforts. A lot of trips to the key players in each country, with an expert who is known across Europe, brought to the tables of power and influence in the key capitals in well orchestrated harmony. Having a good lobbyist and campaigner on the ground to secure the meetings and raise the necessary publicity helps wonders.  Having someone to bridge cultural and  language barriers is a benefit.

Muddling through is going to land up in misery.