Ellen Bruno
Lobby the EU
What is the Swedish Society for
Nature Conservation
•Democratic movement
•192 000 members, 100 years old
•3 working methods
• love to nature
• consumer power
• political lobbying
•5 focus areas
– Climate, Sea, Forest, Agriculture, Chemicals
•Global work + own environmental labelling
Today
1. Why do you need to lobby
2. Where/When in an EU-process
can you lobby
3. Who can you lobby
4. How can you lobby
Why should you lobby
• To save the world
• You represent nature
• You are the voice of your members
• Administrators and decision makers need to know
and want to know what You think is the best for
nature
• You can speak with your national representativs
better than an umbrella organisation
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Where you can lobby
Good times to lobby
• EC – Early in process, if possible before consultation
paper
– Demands insight and informal contacts
• During drafting of proposal
– Demands informal contacts
• Through MEPs – first and second reading. In Committees
and Plenary.
– Documents easily accessible
– Possibility to draft own text
EC working program
http://ec.europa.eu/atwork/pdf/forward_programming_2013.pdf
Good times to lobby
• EC – Early in process, if possible before consultation
paper
– Demands insight and informal contacts
• During drafting of proposal
– Demands informal contacts
• Through MEPs – first and second reading. In Committees
and Plenary.
– Documents easily accessible
– Possibility to draft own text
Commission Directory
http://ec.europa.eu/staffdir/plsql/gsys_page.display_index?pLang=EN
Good times to lobby
• EC – Early in process, if possible before consultation
paper
– Demands insight and informal contacts
• During drafting of proposal
– Demands informal contacts
• Through MEPs – first and second reading. In
Committees and Plenary.
– Documents easily accessible
– Possibility to draft own text
EP – legislative observatory
Good times to lobby
• Discussions in fisheries coreper (Committee of
Permanent Representatives)
– Documents not easily accessible, demands good contacts
with national administration
• Adoption in Council
– Documents accessible
– Possibly interresting for media
Who can you lobby
Regional Advisory Councils (RAC)
The Council
• Permantent
representation
policy officer
• National policy
officer
• Chair country
European Commission –
respective directorate
• Policy officer
• Head of Unit/Directorate
• Commissioner + cabinet
European Parliament
• MEP committee representatives
• MEP plenary representative
• Rapporteur
• Shadow rapporteur
• Assisstents!
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How can you lobby
European Commission:
• Call, write and meet with key persons at DG
• Find allies at other DGs
• Write questions through MEP
– Seek information and let them know your opinion
European Parliament:
• Call, write and meet with key persons and assistents
– Give information, not only opinion
– Provide with amendments
How can you lobby
• To lobby the council and the coreper is to lobby at home
– Press, media, letters – let them show their cards at home
– Create pressure through national parliament
Don´t forget the Århus convention
Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in
Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental matters
• Access to information: any citizen should have the right to get a wide and easy
access to environmental information. Public authorities must provide all the
information required and collect and disseminate them and in a timely and
transparent manner. They can refuse to do it only under particular situations
(such as national defence)
• Public participation in decision making: the public must be informed over all
the relevant projects and it has to have the chance to participate during the
decision-making and legislative process. Decision makers can take advantage
from people's knowledge and expertise; this contribution is a strong
opportunity to improve the quality of the environmental decisions, outcomes
and to guarantee procedural legitimacy
• Access to justice: the public has the right to judicial or administrative recourse
procedures in case a Party violates or fails to adhere to environmental law and
the convention's principles.
Lobby from the inside – how to
get a work at the EC
http://europa.eu/epso/
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Good luck!
ellen.bruno@naturskyddsforeningen.se