Exposing the foreign influence ‘triangle’ – POLITICO

A weekly newsletter on campaigning, lobbying and political influence in the EU.

By SARAH WHEATON

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HOWDY. As we rushed to meet the deadline for this edition of EU Influence, our colleagues are wrapping up comprehensive coverage of Wednesday’s enlargement announcement. There’s not much about that here. It’s not the first time we’ve felt like we’re marching to a slightly different beat at this lobbying- and policy-focused newsletter, and it turns out it’s not just in our head. A new survey of policymakers shows that while EU media were focused on the invasion of Ukraine and transatlantic relations, the environment was top of mind for policymakers. Read on for more insights. 

ON THE RECORD

“The digital manipulation of elections in the style of Cambridge Analytica, targeted disinformation before referendums such as Brexit, contradictory election promises to different voter groups — all of this remains legal.” 

— MEP Patrick Breyer, to my Pro Tech colleagues, after EU negotiators struck a deal Monday on new rules that crack down on excessive microtargeting of political advertisements.

FOREIGN AGENT FEARS

JOUROVÁ EXPECTS NGO TRANSPARENCY RULE BY END OF YEAR: The Commission will likely adopt its Defence of Democracy Package by the end of the year, Transparency and Values Commissioner Véra Jourová told my colleague Jakob Hanke Vela. Don’t expect the much-loathed requirements for civil society groups to disclose third-country funding to disappear, she told him. 

Refresher: The overall package is meant to prevent foreign interference in EU democracies. But NGOs — including those devoted to transparency — have been raging that requirements to reveal non-EU funding will lead them to be stigmatized along the lines of Moscow’s foreign agents law. They succeeded in sending the project back for an impact assessment earlier this year. 

Standing firm: Jourová said her team spoke with intelligence services and remain convinced that “it is still a good idea.” The proposal will try to highlight the “triangle” of the EU-based NGO, the foreign government, and the contract between them for influencing the EU.   

Not so far as FARA: An equivalent of America’s Foreign Agents Registration Act — which produces a trove of searchable lobbying documents — isn’t in the cards either. Jourová said they looked into laws in the U.S. and Australia, but those are underpinned by national security concerns — a legal basis Brussels doesn’t have. “What we can do is to ask for information to be made public, and that remains in the making.”

Carve-outs: In light of NGOs’ concerns about potential retaliation, those that face a “justified risk” could request to be included in a “nonpublic part of the register,” she told Jakob.

PARLIAMENT’S VERSION: The Parliament’s Budgetary Control Committee discussed its own resolution on NGO transparency this week. The draft — not so transparently — still hasn’t been made public, though we previewed some points a few weeks ago. 

CAMPAIGN LITERATURE

H-E-S-R-U-N-N-I-N-G: This glossy, spotted in Strasbourg, was printed by the Commission, a spokesman for Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton confirmed — though he said it was a mere “two-digit” budget. My colleagues have this deep dive on the latest complications for Breton’s Spitzenkandidat ambitions.

Q & A: PENTA’S LOBBYIST-POLLSTER

MIKE GOTTLIEB ASKS POLITICIANS HOW THEY WANT IT: Political persuasion has the mystique of a dark art, with savvy lobbyists wielding connections and conjuring strategies through their innate sense of what works and what doesn’t.

Going beyond the gut check: Ballast Research was founded some 10 years ago in Washington with the idea that, like, maybe you should just ask politicians how they want to be lobbied. (Not for nothing that it emerged from National Journal, a Beltway journalism stalwart that once competed with our U.S. edition.) Like consumer research, but for politics, the company surveyed policymakers about the “policy brand” or “policy reputation” of corporates and advocacy players, said Mike Gottlieb, the ex-White House adviser in charge of the effort.

Surveying the Eurocracy: Now part of the Penta Group after a mega-merger that also pulled in Hume Brophy in Brussels, Gottlieb’s team conducted its third annual survey of EU policymakers earlier this year. A version sent to Parliamentary assistants asked how they perceive the “advocacy efforts” of big players including Bayer, Exxon, Microsoft, Shell, PepsiCo, and the pharma lobby EFPIA.

Rocky start: As we reported, Penta Policy Insiders was dinged by the Transparency Register for offering donations to UNICEF in exchange for responses from policy assistants, after complaints from The Left MEP Manon Aubry. But as Gottlieb told EU Influence, politicians are generally pretty happy to help. More than 600 policymakers from the Commission, Parliament and national capitals weighed in. 

Findings: Sadly, the 2023 EU Insights review doesn’t include pols’ assessments of those big companies’ lobbying strategies. But it does have interesting insights on how they want to be lobbied and what they’re paying attention to.

EU Influence caught up with Gottlieb on Wednesday during his visit to Brussels. The transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

How open are policymakers to engaging with these surveys and interviews?

We start with a hypothesis that policy conversations are inefficient, at best, and ineffective or flawed at worst. Our experience is that it doesn’t take a lot of work to get policymakers to agree with that. They are increasingly short on time, they are increasingly short on attention span — which I don’t say pejoratively at all, it’s simply the market. It’s so crowded and noisy and political and partisan and volatile.

If you … essentially say: “Hey, policymaker, we know you’re busy. We know that you rely to some extent on this outside information. What is most helpful to you? What would be most valuable and at the same time, what’s not helpful?”

If they are clear on that ambition, they will engage very candidly and productively.

Are there differences between the way U.S. and EU policymakers want to be hearing from the private sector?

There are notable differences on substance, in particular prioritization of policies, when it comes down to how a policymaker wants to be engaged. [Editor’s note: The Penta study showed American pols are more into talking about the economy, while climate is a bigger concern in Europe.]

There are remarkable similarities. Looking at the data, there’s probably a 70 percent overlap in terms of the specific tactics or approaches that are most welcome.

The effective use of research and data to support and undergird your policy priorities, your conversation, is deeply shared. So much so that it is one of the most distinguishing factors of effectiveness of different corporate advocates.

Effectiveness of the lobbying team, although essential to the effectiveness of the advocacy strategy, is not, by and large, the most distinguishing factor. Now, if you don’t have a good lobbying team, that will be distinguishing. But if we study the most effective 50 organizations in either region, they’re all going to have pretty good lobbyists. So where do they distinguish themselves? On the extent to which they effectively use research and data to support and amplify their policy positions.

I would suspect, especially on the left, there is often skepticism about the quality of data that companies are presenting. I’m thinking of “Merchants of Doubt” on climate science and historic tobacco industry concerns. Does your research offer insight?

Bad data is not helpful. And policymakers are able to suss out bad data.

There are organizations in our study that we know produce data for policymakers that those policymakers quickly ignore. There are organizations that produce data, and then they derive some conclusions, and the policymakers take the data because it’s accurate and helpful, but they completely throw out the conclusion. Not surprisingly, this adversely impacts your brand and reputation in Washington, or in the EU.

Policymakers tell us that the most effective organizations are those that play it straight, so to speak. They are nonpartisan, data-driven, economics-based, long-term. They are thinking more about five- and 10-year impacts of policy on industry rather than quarterly earnings.

I would imagine the challenge of this type of study in the EU is the multiple layers of policymaking across institutions and capitals. How confident are you in some of the data, given the complicated population?

So look, these are the challenges, right? I mean, if I may, how much more of a challenge is this than trying to figure out what is going on in Washington — especially right now?

We see a long-term opportunity here to evolve and improve the research year over year. We are providing something in a space that did not exist before.

Perhaps the greatest challenge to us is the speed with which circumstances change. It’s one thing to say, “Oh, boy, what a messy policy environment and how complicated it must be to engage policymakers.” But add on to that the quickly evolving crises that so meaningfully change the environment and the space and priorities, etc. Our greatest challenge, I think, is one of cadence and speed and alacrity and responsiveness — not in the long-standing complications.

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DISPATCH FROM THE BACK-BURNER

DON’T FORGET US, SAYS ARMENIAN LOBBY: Only a month ago, the room would have been full of journalists, but the press conference set up by the European Armenian Federation for Justice and Democracy (EAFJD) and the Europeans for Artsakh platform at the Brussels Press Club Tuesday showed how the crisis in Azerbaijan is now behind many others. “Many reporters declined the invitation as they have to focus on the Israel-Palestine situation,” said an Armenian diplomat who was attending the event. An Azeri counterpart was there, as well as an energy lobbyist, both politely taking notes, as my colleague Elisa Braun spotted.

What’s next? Speakers invited by EAFJD yesterday, who were also to talk at the European Parliament later that day, plan to emphasize that there are legal instruments to qualify the genocide that they say is happening in Nagorno-Kabaragh, and want to put pressure on the EU to prevent it from happening again and condemn those who perpetrate it and their accomplices. 

Important guest: Luis Moreno Ocampo, a former chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, has been campaigning for Armenia since the crisis emerged and has recently met with Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, who promised she would show her support towards Armenians in Baku’s prisons, he announced. Moreno’s reputation was originally based on his work decrying genocide in Darfur and as a former Transparency International exec. But he embraced a new career after several media reported he had worked as a consultant for private individuals and clients through offshore companies.

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INFLUENCERS

NEW BUSINESS LOBBY: Europe Unlocked is a new coalition of business confederations from Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania and Norway as well as the European Round Table for Industry, the European Small Business Alliance and the European Entrepreneurs group.

Mission: Headed by Kieran O’Keeffe of Dentons Global Advisors, it “will push for a radical re-think of how to boost productivity, and therefore prosperity across the continent,” it said in a statement. One immediate priority: making sure exceptional measures to tackle crises don’t become the norm.

Dear Mario: The group put a letter out Wednesday to ex-Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, tasked with working on Europe’s competitiveness, imploring him to “SOS. Strengthen our Single Market.”

CHEMICALS

— Cefic announced a round of promotions: Camilla Martelli to executive director of public affairs; Liesbeth Timmermans to executive director of legal affairs; Michela Mastrantonio to public affairs director, sector groups; and George Kapantaidakis to director of industrial policy.

— Hartwig Wendt is leaving Cefic to join Bayer.

CONSULTING & COMMS

— APCO Worldwide announced the start of Margy, an in-house AI bot (named for founder Margery Kraus) who will help mine the consultancy’s data, monitor media for client mentions, and other lobbying chores. 

— Tim Weber has been promoted to managing director and EMEA head of editorial at Edelman.

— Kelsey Beltz has been promoted to head of global partnerships at The Good Lobby.

FINANCIAL SERVICES

— Carolina De Giorgi became a senior manager, EU affairs at Allianz’s asset management, having previously worked for EFAMA.

HEALTH CARE

— Marek Kortus left BCW Brussels to become manager, lead for government affairs with Plasma Protein Therapeutics Association Europe.

INDUSTRY

— Frank Heemskerk is moving to semiconductor company ASML as executive vice president, public affairs & countries, stepping down from his current position of secretary general at the European Round Table for Industry on January 31.

MOBILITY

—  Patrick Keating has been promoted to head of government affairs at Honda Motor Europe Ltd.

SUSTAINABILITY

— Thomas Dellile joins Squire Patton Boggs as partner at the European public policy practice, having previously worked at Mayer Brown

TECH

— Ana Gradinaru joined Global Counsel as a director in the technology, media and telecom team, via Meta. 

— Laura Broek will start working as project manager at the health data management company Bluesquare later this month. She is currently with Allied for Startups (AFS).

THINK TANKS

— Heather Grabbe has joined Bruegel as senior fellow on climate, environment and trade research, after running the Open Society European Policy Institute.

— Gunnar Wiegand, former managing director for Asia and the Pacific at the EEAS, has joined the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) in Brussels as a visiting distinguished fellow on the Indo-Pacific program. 

MEA CULPA: Last week’s newsletter incorrectly stated the timing of Gabriel Daia’s transition from ETNO to the European Banking Federation. He starts the new role in December.

THANKS TO: Jakob Hanke Vela, Elisa Braun, Aoife White and especially Ketrin Jochecová; visual producer Giovanna Coi, web producer Max Fahler and my editor Paul Dallison.

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