European Parliament in Brussels

[UPDATE ON 11 FEBRUARY 2010:  The European Parliament just rejected the Swift agreement by 378 to 196 votes, giving us an answer to the question in our title: not the US, not the Commission and not the Council, at least on this one!]

The press, the euroblogosphere, Twitter…everywhere you look, discussions are taking place about the SWIFT dossier, and the “bras de fer” between the European Parliament and the Council relating to the transfer of bank data from European citizens to the United States authorities.

I won’t go in the substance of the debate as I am not an expert on those specific matters, even if my gut feeling tells tme that somewhere, something went really wrong (a feeling probably stemming from my disappointment some years ago when I saw Europe adopting its Data Retention Directive).

You can read a great post about the issues at stake with SWIFT written by BrusselsBlogger here , as well as a “blog intermediated discussion” between Julien Frish (asking Hillary Clinton to back off and leave the European Parliament alone) and Jon Worth (considering the EU can’t have its cake and eat it when it comes to relations with the USA)

The bit that struck me in this entire debate is: when Europe shows its teeth, at least through its elected officials in the European Parliament, the US know who to call. Jerzy Buzek by Hillary Clinton, numerous MEPs by the US Ambassador in Brussels…No communication issue here and no need for yellow pages.

But to a certain extent, I am starting to wonder if the classic question “Who should I call?” is not also becoming “Who will call them?”. Just imagine a reverse situation whereby Congress in the States were unwilling to sign up to an agreement between Europe and the USA. Who would call Nancy Pelosi? Herman Van Rompuy? Zappatero? Baroness Ashton? Barroso? Buzek? None or all of the above? And after Obama’s decision faced with this cacophony to not attend the EU-US summit (and let’s be frank: it’s not like the guy doesn’t have more pressing things to look after than yet another hand-shaking session in sunny Spain), would Pelosi pick up the phone?

But let’s go back to the title of this post: this week, the European Parliament votes on SWIFT in Strasbourg. The international and Council pressure is gigantic for them to vote YES, whilst I think every European citizen aware of this issue hopes they will stand strong and vote NO. After Super Bowl last night, I hope they make theirs the motto of the Saints and reply strongly : “Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Parliament ? Who dat?”

And for the Saints’ fans:

I had the pleasure of being invited to speak about Lobbying the EU by EDRI (European Digital Rights) at a seminar organised for a bunch of NGOs and activists.

Obviously, aside from the nice feeling one gets being “The Lobbyist” amongst “The Nice Guys” (and actually they all were extremely nice, even when they knew I was an industry representative), I had a fun time talking about my experience in Brussels, especially as I built my entire presentation around quotes from Miguel Cervantes‘ Don Quixote in honour of the Spanish Presidency (which ended up being as fun as when I made a presentation under Swedish Presidency using ABBA lyrics), as you can see from my slides below.

The best part of these speaking gigs is obviously the Q&A at the end. I found a couple of remarks and exchanges especially interesting and worth mentionning in this blog:

• Lobbying Vs advocacy: I must admit, I find the whole labelling discussion a bit odd. To me, as soon as you try to influence a legislative outcome or process, regardless if you are a multi-national, an SME, a trade association, an NGO or Mr John Smith, a concerned citizen, you are lobbying (I even tend to consider that when my 3 year-old manages to convince me that I wil save her from doom by giving her a cookie, she’s one hell of a lobbyist). As you can imagine, NGOs have another view on this and we started discussing on what was different in their way of doing things and mine. They argued they were not doing “lobbying” because they did many other things, but that I found un-convincing personnally, as an argument. But then one argument in the discussion struck me as maybe holding part of the answer: activists told me that quite often, they consider they have reached their goal when on a specific subject, they have raised awareness in the press and amongst citizens and basically “created a stir”, even if the legislative text did not go their way. That is probably at the exact opposite of what I try to achieve in my job. Creating a stir is frankly not what I’m looking for and if a text is not changed in a direction that is “better” from my perspective (and my clients’), the ink dry and the paper printed in the Official Journal, I have achieved nothing. Yes, I do think that is probably the main difference I have found between the two approaches, and I’m actually happy to have been able to put my finger on it.
• The approach to lobbying the 3 institutions: I strongly believe you never lobby institutions but people. But still, it is true that each EU institution has its own “culture” and “approachability factor” (and even within an institution, there are sub-worlds, as for example one Directorate-General can be totally different to another in the European Commission). But summarising these cultural differences is difficult. To me, it ends up being an issue of “length of relationship”: the European Parliament is an institution where “short term relationships” and “one-day stands” in terms of lobbying are absolutly acceptable. You can meet an MEP once, explain an issue, maybe convince him, and never see him again and there will be no hard feelings. Council and Commission on the other hand, require a lot more long term relationship-building. Trust is a hard-earned currency there, based on technical expertise and coherence, and that is hardly something you can earn in a 30 minutes speed-date (see my post on speed-dating at the Mickey Mouse).

This is the second time I am invited to speak specifically about my job and I must say, in both cases, I have learnt valuable insights from my audience, so I really look forward to doing this more often!

OK, I will admit it from the start: this title is purely tailored to drive traffic to my site. But it also comes from a funny thought I had this afternoon sitting for 4 straight hours in the Mickey Mouse bar of the European Parliament.

Mickey Mouse Bar in the good ol' days

But first, a word of history: what is the Mickey Mouse will you ask? Difficult to say these days. In the good ol’ days, the “Mickey Mouse” was the nickname given by MEPs, assistants and lobbyists to one of the bars in the European Parliament in Brussels, due to the very colourful chairs shaped, well, like a giant mouse’s ears.

But last year, in a sudden and savage twist of all our habits, codes, customs, the European Parliament re-looked it, and event so noteworthy that even European Voice covered it with the anguished title “Death of Mickey Mouse? – A sore loss in the European Parliament” .

The feeling of loss is actually such that they have kept one set of seats with a big painting featuring Mickey at the entrance, that is now a full part of the EP touristy guided tour…

Anyway, let’s close here the walk down memory lane (except for those that haven’t visited it since then: it’s now populated with greyish and burgundy leatherish armchairs with the charm and appeal of…average EU comms I guess) and come to the topic of this blog post.

The Mickey Mouse was cramped the entire afternoon and as I was meeting assistant after assistant at a twenty minute interval, and looking at the assistant of an MEP currently Rapporteur for a politically important Report doing the saùme with lobbyist after lobbyist (and for the excitable amongst you, this included industry but also NGOs, etc), the image of speed dating suddenly came to mind: 20 min, tell me who you are, show me why I should like you and want to see you (i.e. your amendment, paper, wish list, etc) on a second date…all the way, up to the body language which was fun to follow.

I went home alone…but I think some of my papers may get their second date opportunity

It’s getting closer to 11 February, when all the EU heads of state and government meet in one of those massive European Council gatherings people living and working in Brussels enjoy so much (ooh, the joys of closed underground stations, cops everywhere, escorted vehicles whizzing amongst the traffic-jammed amongst us…).

Moreover, this summit has a special culinary element (or so I imagine): with a troïka of Spanish, Belgian and Hungarian presidencies, what will teh menu look like? At least, when we had the Swedes, we knew meatballs would be a given. But this time? Tapas followed by “Lapin à la gueuze” with Belgian Fries and a nice Tokaji wine to close the loop? So much choice, so little time!

But obviously, the menu will not be the main concern. No, ladies and gentlemen: it’s “Vision setting” time.

So what do we, Euro-spectators, need at such a crucial and future-shaping time: our very own “EU Buzzword Bingo Grid” (get yours here)

Finally, an EU Geek Grid

For those of you that have not had the joy of working in large corporations where meetings tend to be places of great creativity and joy, the Buzzword Bingo grid (and I am quoting Wikipedia) :

“ was invented in 1993 by Silicon Graphics Principle Scientist Tom Davis, in collaboration with Seth Katz. The concept was popularized by a Dilbert comic strip in 1994, in which the characters play during an office meeting.

One documented example occurred when Al Gore, then the Vice President of the United States, known for his liberal use of buzzwords hyping technology, spoke at MIT’s 1996 graduation. Hackers had distributed bingo cards containing buzzwords to the graduating class.”

But having a grid is only half the work. The next step is to use it vocally. Invite a bunch of friends over for dinner, listen to that closing speech by the EU brass and don’t be shy to shout a wholeheartedly felt “Bingo” when you have that full grid. The grid being quite comprehensive, you can equally use it once that EU2020 Vision gets issued in a nice glossy official document. There, additional rules can be introduced: you get extra points if you spot 3 Buzzwords in the same sentences or if you were able to identify a buzzword in a different language (yes, we do believe in promoting multi-lingualism), etc.

Setting the vision for Europe for the next 10 years should be an important moments…but that doesn’t mean it should not make you smile!