“Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made” John Godfrey Saxe
This morning Politico seemed surprised “that Swedish Socialists & Democrats MEP Jytte Guteland — who is the lead lawmaker on the bill — has already begun drafting her report, and political discussions are being held over the phone.”
I’d be surprised if this were not happening. It’s how legislation has been made for over 20 years.
A long time ago, way back in 1997, Channel 4 made a fly on the wall series about passing EU legislation. It is called ‘Brussels Behind Closed Doors’.
Back then, I worked as a political advisor for Anita Pollack MEP, the Rapporteur for the piece of legislation that Channel 4 documentary makers choose to follow.
Where did the meetings go?
At the end of filming, one of the film crew asked “what happened to all the meetings? Did you stop them because we were following you”?
The answer was no. Even back in 1997, most of the grinding out part of lawmaking was done by email and phone. It still is
The trick for getting a major piece of legislation passed quickly and intact is to avoid meetings. Instead, focus your time on preparing your reports, amendments, and the evidence to back your position.
Face to face meetings can be chunked down into a week of back to back fact-finding meetings. They can be on-line or face to face to face.
After that, you’ll have enough information to start drafting. You’ll often find that most people will wake up just about when your report is passed without amendment at the Committee stage.
Where do you focus
Face to face meetings played a small part in getting this directive passed.
The same rule occurs for the other pieces of legislation I have worked on. It does not seem to matter if I worked on the adoption inside the Parliament and Commission, or outside as a lobbyist and campaigner.
The machinery of legislation making is spent on two tasks.
Firstly, drafting reports and amendments.
Secondly, gathering, reading and reviewing evidence.
Meetings are used to hear politicians and others out, and to agree on voting positions and the votes themselves. That though is a small part of the overall time.
Some NGOs and industry may think that meetings are vital for passing legislation, but they’d be wrong.
Are you worth fighting for?
The real tools to influence is providing clear, concise and accurate briefings. So rare are these moments of lucid clear thinking and writing, is that that if you do so, you’ll find lawmakers clamouring to co-opt your positions as a whole.
The idea that a politician can memorise word for word what you say in a meeting is simply delusional. They’ll need to look at the briefing note you handed over.
The real purpose of a face to face meeting is to work out if you can be trusted and your cause is worth fighting for.
In current circumstances, the only impediment for grinding out legislation is for the servers and wi-fi to keep working.