The Commission’s Green Deal is an ambitious agenda. It is over 300 initiatives covering 11 policy areas (from Biodiversity to Renovation). It is a mix of ordinary legislation, secondary legislation, and guidelines. It is the most ambitious green agenda of any Commission for 20 years.
I am not sure how the EP and Council are going to find the free time in the legislative agenda to deliberate and agree on proposals.
Just tracking the state of play the initiatives is going to cause many a headache. In a world were people don’t like to read, getting a snap shot of were things are is going to be a problem.
Make Tough Choices
If you are impacted by the Green Deal, you are going to have make some tough choices. You can’t cover everything.
I learned something valuable from my time at IFAW on making tough choices. There is something catahartic about having limited resources. It forces you to work on the very few things were you can make a positive difference to the outcome. It’s a lesson that’s stayed with me.
When you are making the choices, I find it useful to base assumptions on the reasonable worst case scenario. It helps you make pragmatic decisions. Too many bad choices are made on happy thoughts, or that the people making the decisions think the same way as you. If you drop this model of thinking, your choices will be better.
Criteria for walking away
You are going to have make some tough choices. Here are some objective criteria you can use to help you make those choices:
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You don’t have the votes. If you don’t have a political chance in hell of getting what you want, or influence events, pause. Looking at previous similar votes is a good way to go. I never start before looking at the oracle of VoteWatch Europe. If you won’t have a positive influence, why work on something?
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You don’t have the resources. If you don’t have the money to engage on the issue properly, don’t. Lobbying and campaigning is not free. It costs money. You need to decide where you invest your money. You can’t do it all. If you start cutting the spend on one issue so that you can do two things badly instead of one thing well, you are going to imperil success on the one thing you stood a chance of getting what you want.
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You started too late. If you start late in the day, and through a bout of amnesia did not know a proposal was coming out the door, or was about to be agreed to by the EP and Council in a fast first reading agreement, it is better not to start at all.
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You don’t have the evidence to support your case. Most campaigns fail because they just don’t have the objective evidence to support their case. By that I mean the type of evidence that is going to persuade the officials and politicians who need to be persuaded.
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You don’t have the people. You may just not have the people who can lobby or campaign to win your case. If you can’t find the people to do the work, your chances of winning are limited. You may have people on staff, but if they are unsuited for inter-acting with officials and politicians, your chances are low.
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You can’t deal with the cognitive overload. Most organisations will break at the seam doing 3 legislative files well at the same time. Do you have the headspace to with more than 3 pieces of legislation at the same time? Few do.
How you can choose
1. Monitor the content and state of play on the proposals that are important to you. With over 300 in play, that’s no so easy.
2. You need to have mapped which initiatives are importance to to you, what they are are about, who the key officials and politicians are, and where they are at in the policy development process.
3. You need some criteria to make some tough choices. What criteria are you going to use to choose what to work on. Political importance, precedent, RoI are all good
4. Know your SMART goals. Knowing your SMART goals from the very start is key. Put them down on paper.
5. Have a plan. If you don’t have a plan to deal with your priority files, you just have a dream. Again, the plan needs to be on paper.
6. You need the resources. It’s better to have the resources to do one thing well, than many things badly.
7. You need to make some tough choices on what not to do.