European Parliament Intergroups

Intergroups

What are they?

Intergroups are ways to share views on cross-cutting issues or very specific issues between MEP’s from diferent political groups and civil society. Normal committee’s of the European Parliament are somewha limited because they don’t deal with issues which are a cross-cutting like for example energy issues at ports (is this something for the ITRE Committee or the TREN committee?). The European Parliament Intergroup on Climate Change, Biodiversity and Sustainable Development is a good example of an intergroup that is cutting across various policy areas. Other Intergroups focus on very specific topics. Examples of these very focused Intergroups are the Intergroup on Youth, the Intergroup on Tibet, and the Intergroup on the Sahara. In short Intergroups are platforms for MEP's to discuss cross-cutting issues /specific issues amongst different political families and the civil society.  

What are they not?

Inter-groups are informal groups within the European Parliament which consist of members of the European Parliament and members of civil society. It is important to know that while the rules of procedure govern the establishment and functioning of the Intergroups, they are not Parliament bodies and therefore may not express Parliament’s opinion. Moreover, they may not use the name nor the logo of the European Parliament nor any name which might lead to confusion with the official bodies of the European Parliament such as parliamentary committees, interparliamentary delegations and joint parliamentary committees. In addition, Intergroups may not undertake any activities which resemble the official activities of Parliament or of its bodies.

Why do Intergroups matter?

The strength of the Intergroup really depends on how active it is, and how involved the MEP’s are. Formally an Intergroup can’t take any position, nor can it vote on something, however Intergroups do have the power to bring something under the attention of key policymakers in the EU. By organizing meetings with MEP’s from different political groups they can turn the attention of the MEP’s to a subject which was previously unknown. By inviting certain speakers to these meetings they can signal in certain views on a matter. They also are powerfull enough to invite Commissionairs for an exchange of views. Also by simply having an Intergroup on on an issue signals that the European Parliament finds this issue important.

Examples of active Intergroups


The Intergroup on Climate change, biodiversity and sustainable development is run by the European Bureau for Conservation and Development. They organise debates on issues ranging from Aquaculture to the Greening of the CAP. Their succes lies in their tightly run secretariat, their knack of focusing on relevant topics and their ability to attract important speakers. 

List and information of all the intergroups


Sustainable Hunting, Biodiversity, Countryside Activities and Forests
Chair: Véronique Mathieu
List of members
Website: 
Affiliated organisation: 




Name intergroup: Ways of Saint James / Caminos de Santiago
Chair: Francisco José Millán Mon
List of members 
Website: 
Affiliated organisation: 




Media 
Chair: Jean-Marie Cavada
List of members: 
Website: 
Affiliated organisation: 


Urban
Chair: Jan Olbrycht
List of members 
Website: www.urban-intergroup.eu 
Affiliated organisation: 


Public Services (SGI - SSGI)
Chair: Françoise Castex
List of members 
Website: 
Affiliated organisation: 


Trade Union
Chair: Alejandro Cercas
List of members 
Website: 
Affiliated organisation: 


Western Sahara
Chair: Norbert Neuser
List of members 
Website: 
Affiliated organisation: 


Tibet
Chair: Thomas Mann
List of members 
Website: 
Affiliated organisation: 


Disability
Chair: Ádám Kósa
List of members 
Website: 
Affiliated organisation: 


Traditional Minorities, National Communities and Languages
Chair: Kinga Gál and Carl Haglund
List of members: 
Website: 
Affiliated organisation: 


Mountains, Islands and Sparsely-Populated Regions
Chair: Bogusław Sonik
List of members 
Website: 
Affiliated organisation: 


Baltic-Europe
Chair: Tunne Kelam
List of members 
Website: 
Affiliated organisation: 


Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Rights - LGBT
Chair: Michael Cashman and Ulrike Lunacek
List of members 
Website: 
Affiliated organisation: 


Social Economy / Economie Sociale
Chair: Mario Mauro and Marc Tarabella
List of members 
Website: 
Affiliated organisation: 


Mers et Zones Côtières / Seas and Coastal Areas
Chair: Corinne Lepage
List of members 
Website: 
Affiliated organisation: 




Sky and Space / Ciel et Espace
Chair: Vittorio Prodi
List of members 
Website: 
Affiliated organisation: 


Anti-racisme & Diversity
Chair: Emine Bozkurt
List of members 
Website: 
Affiliated organisation: ENAR: European Network Against Racism


Youth Issues / Jeunesse
Chair: Damien Abad
List of members 
Website: 
Affiliated organisation: European Youth Forum 


Family and the Right of the Child & Bioethics
Chair: Anna Záborská, Miroslav Mikolášik and Margrete Auken
List of members 
Website: 
Affiliated organisation: 




Viticulture, Fruits et Legumes, Tradition et Alimentation de qualite
Chair: Astrid Lulling
List of members 
Website: 
Affiliated organisation: 


Welfare & conservation of animals
Chair: SCHLYTER Carl
List of members 
Website: 
Affiliated organisation: 


SME "small and medium-sized enterprise"
Chair: KARAS Othmar
List of members 
Website: 
Affiliated organisation: 


Ageing and intergenerational solidarity
Chair: MORAES Claude, CABRNOCH Milan, GUTIÉRREZ-CORTINES Cristina, LAMBERT Jean, LIOTARD Kartika Tamara, LYNNE Elizabeth, van NISTELROOIJ Lambert
List of members 
Website: 
Affiliated organisation: 


Climate change, biodiversity and sustainable development / Changement climatique, biodiversité et développement durable
Chair: Struan Stevenson
List of members 
Website: 
Affiliated organisation: European Bureau for Conservation and Development


Extreme poverty and human rights
Chair: MÉNDEZ DE VIGO Íñigo
List of members 
Website: 
Affiliated organisation: 


New media
Chair: Marietje Schaake
List of members 
Website: 
Affiliated organisation: 

EU Monitoring

Monitoring the EU Process.


You can download this page in pdf format


For people working in EU Affairs, monitoring EU policies is part of their daily routines. But before you become efficient and smart at it, you must first go through a lengthy learning process where you discover where to find the information and how to organize yourself. In this text we will explain how to organize yourself and where to find the information you need to stay on top of EU developments.

Organizing yourself.

Monitoring EU policies and legislation should be built-in to your daily routine. Ideally there are several moments when you commit yourself to plow through agenda's, newspapers and whatnot. It starts with your daily routine. In the morning (along with a cup of coffee) try to read the more general papers such as the Financial Times, Euractiv, Europolitics, the EUobserver. Then in the afternoon, check the Commissions EU Midday Express for latest news and speeches from Commissionaires. Speeches are not to be underestimated as they always reveal hints at future developments.

If it is a Committee Week drop by at the European Parliament to check what hearings are taking place at the EP. Posters are hanging on several walls indicating which hearing is taking place where. While you should already know this by looking at the websites of the political parties, my experience is that in general hearings are very poorly communicated, so nothing beats actually going to the EP to look at the poster (provided you have an entrance badge). At the end of the week (I always do this on Fridays) you should take a look ahead at the coming week. Especially look at plenary and Committee Agenda's. This is also a great moment to look at the agenda of the national parliament, as you can't totally ignore the national dimension.

If you want to makes sure you are involved at the very beginning of a policy process you should pay attention to green papers, white papers, consultations or other discussions that are taking place. These normally hint at serious EU activity on a subject in the future. Apart from these there is no substituting the periodical coffee or lunch with a European Commission civil servant. You can find their names and telephone numbers at European Commission the directory. The same goes for parliamentary assistants, political advisors of the parties and committee secretariats.

On a more strategic level there are a couple moments in the year which deserve your special attention. The European Commission publishes it's working program in November. This should be analyzed thoroughly (especially the Annexes). The same goes for the program of the Council Presidency, which is published right before a presidency starts. Don't only look at the priorities, also look at the various (informal) meetings which are going to take place during the presidency. Finally, the European Union has a EU Calender, where more relevant dates for the whole year can be found. I suggest to make every month a quarter forecast of the EU Calendar.

Here are all the link's again

Daily

Financial Times,

Euractiv,

Europolitics
Commissions EU Midday Express

Weekly

EPP Group

ALDE Group

Plenary

Committee Agenda's

Monthly / Periodically

green papers

consultations

European Commission the directory

EU Calender

Yearly

working program

European Parliament Committee Secretariats

In order to function properly, The 736 members of the European Parliament can rely on Parliament officials at their disposal. The linguistic service and These civil servants of the European Parliament are appointed through the EPSO concourse and are expected to be neutral in their handlings. The Parliament has about 6000 officials in service, but one third are translators, the rest are clerks, administrators, assistants, secretaries and others. In this Blog we will zoom in on the support staff of the Parliamentary Committees.

The Parliamentary Committee can rely on a secretariat which consists of 5 to 10 persons. The secretariat is headed by a Secretary of the Committee. The responsibilities of the secretary of the Committee include appointing administrators to Committee Rapporteurs, handling incoming letters and forwarding them either to the Committee Chair or the Committee members and supporting the Committee Chair. Moreover the secretary of the Committee is responsible for drafting the agenda of the Committee. The agendas are made in close cooperation with Rapporteurs, chairs and members, but the role of the Committee secretary is not to be underestimated.

When an administrators is designated by the Committee secretary to a Rapporteur his main task is to facilitate and smooth out the process. This starts with talks between the Rapporteur and the administrator on the direction that the Rapporteur wants to take the rapport. A Rapporteur with a strong sense of direction and focus will rely less on the administrator then if opposite is the case. Moreover the role of the administrator will also depend on role the MEP gives his own assistant in the process. If the MEP has a strong sense of direction, backed by expertise and experience, the role of the administrator will be mainly administrative. If the MEP is new and lacks expertise the administrator will have a bigger role to play in the shaping of the rapport. What is a bit unclear is what the role of the political assistant of the political parties is. As the guardian of the groups political positions, he/she will probably want to have his/her say in the development of writing a EP rapport.

How to write an EU Position Paper

How to write a Position Paper 

The position paper is the single most abused lobby instrument in Brussels. It is the most common tool used in the EU to make the position of your organization known with regards to a policy. Sadly, the last years position-papers have also had a negative effect on public affairs in Brussels. Firstly, public affairs amateurs use them too often and too one-dimensional. Indeed some people do nothing but write and send position-papers, thinking that this is what lobbying is all about. Secondly, it is not easy to write a good position paper. But instead of taking the time to make something worth reading, a lot of organizations copy paste entire strategies in position-papers, resulting in too long papers that no-one reads. This is a fair warning; don't write position papers just so you to feel good about yourself because you actually did something. Now thT we have that out of the way, lets see what makes a good position-paper? It needs to be;

• Short
• Easy to read
• Informative and Anecdotal
• Useful

Be an instant hero: Keep it short

Throughout this book, the word short will appear and reappear. It is the single most important advice I can give; Keep it short. Brussels is a place of abundance; there are a lot of restaurants, bars, cars, spa’s. The only thing which is in constant scarcity is time. Keeping it short will make you instantly liked. Your position paper should ideally be 1 or 2 pages. There are good position papers of 4 to 6 pages, but they really need to be gems containing great wisdom and sound advice. I have written a great number of position papers and I have ventured always to make them two pages. The best way to shorten your position paper is read it several times and delete any sentence that does not add any value to the message. Be utmost critical about each sentence. If you are working with more partners (organizations) on a position paper, make sure that everybody agrees that the mission is to make an attractive paper, and not to give stage to individual organizations to window-dress. Keep civil servants at bay when it comes to your paper, they tend to be afraid that something is left out resulting in whole strategies and policy-papers being copy-pasted into the document. Another good way to keep your paper short is by introducing the add-delete rule. Every time you (or someone else) add a sentence to a position paper, one sentence needs to be deleted.

Easy to Read-Structure and content of your position paper

Your position paper should be easy to read. As a general rule, it should have a clear and coherent structure. In position papers that I use in Brussels, I normally use the following order;

1. Thanking the policymakers
2. Stating your position
3. Stating your arguments
4. Provide an alternative
5. Closing

Thanking the policymakers

I always start with thanking the policymaker for the opportunity to give input, or by commending them on the work they do on a specific policy issue. This is a big difference between lobbying in the national capitals or the U.S; In Brussels we are friendly. Unless you have a farmers lobby and you have the power to steamroll Brussels with thousands of tractors, I recommend you always strike a friendly albeit urgent tone in your position papers. You might reach newspapers with an angry tone, but that is all you will accomplish. The character trait of all successful lobbyist in Brussels is that they have a constructive approach when dealing with policymakers. They are always greeted in the offices of policymakers as welcome guests. This not only secures access, prevents damaged relationships, but also leaves the door open for future issues. So when in Rome, be like the Romans, when in Brussels, be friendly.

Stating your position
After you thanked the policymaker, the paper states the position in the most clear, unambiguous way, e.g “We are against the regulation of homemade jam”. Or; “we are for the introduction a European wide ban on animal-testing”. The position should leave no room for doubts on the position of your organisation on a certain issue.

Stating your arguments
Thirdly, a paragraph should be devoted to stating the arguments that underpin your position. Make sure you don’t exaggerate the facts or even worse lie. Your arguments should be based on sounds facts and figures. This does not mean that your arguments can’t be biased or coloured (after all, what information is not biased), but simply don’t do anything that undermines your credentials. If a politicians finds out your information is dodgy, he will stop using it in his daily work.

Provide an alternative.

This is typically a European element in lobbying. You should always provide alternative solutions that are also implementable and supported by a broad range of actors. Not only does this divert from the original plans of policymakers, but it also makes the lobbying process more manageable. After all, it is easier to work with an alternative that you propose or support.

Closing
Finally, close the position paper in a orderly manner, meaning that you don’t leave any open endings or untied knots. Except if you finish with a question which can sometimes serve as a powerful closing statement; “After all is food safety not a top-priority of the European Commission?” “Isn’t the European Commission committed to eradicating poverty in the world?” I personally like to end my position papers by summarizing the advices with numbered bulletpoints. At the top of the bulletpoints I put the header; 5 Recommendations to the European Commission.” This tends to stick and is easy to use as a reference.


Informative and Anecdotal

Make sure your position paper encompasses statements, figures and statistics which will help the policymaker in his discussions with his peers. This is not to say that your document should be full of nitty gritty numbers and graphs, but it should hold a couple of key elements which supports your case, and moreover can be used in a anecdotal fashion by the policymaker; 50 % of Serbian youth has never travelled out of the country”, “one in three car accidents involved alcohol.”

Useful

This sounds like a no-brainer but I think most of the position papers are actually not very useful. They hold information with no direct relevance to the issue and serve as window-dressing for either organizations or worse, for individual politicians and civil servants. Make sure that all the information of the position paper is useful, and has real added value in relation to what the policy paper is concerned with. Just as important is timing. You might send a position paper as a reaction to an on-going consultation, but in all other cases make sure the position paper arrives when it is needed most. For example when dealing with a member of parliament, you must make sure he gets the relevant information when a certain item is on the agenda within his committee, or during question hour with a Commissionaire or Minister. Don’t be afraid to remind them when they can use this; “In two weeks you will meet the state secretary……, feel free to use this document in your discussions”. Do not send position papers if you do not know when and how it might be used, you might as well throw your position paper in a bottomless well.

Summary

• 1. Position papers are used too often en too one dimensiol, make sure you write and send one when you have a clear goal in mind, and the time and resources to guard the quality of the paper.
• 2. A position paper needs to be short, easy to read, informative, anecdotal and last but not least usefull.
• 3. Make sure your paper has a clear structure. One example is; thanking the policy makers, stating your position, use your arguments, provide a alternative and close.
• 4. Write your paper so it can be easy copy-pasted.
• 5. Make sure you deliver your positionpaper at a moment that it can be used.