 |
By SARAH WHEATON
Tips, tales, traumas to @swheaton or influence@politico.eu | View in your browser
HOWDY. Welcome to this week’s edition of EU Influence, the last by this author. Next week, the formidable Elisa Braun — originator of Paris Influence — will be muckraking her way through the bubble in this space. Consider yourselves warned.
Not riding off into the sunset: When I started this job, an editor told me that anyone who did a good job of covering lobbying and influence in Brussels would have to leave town after two years. So, exactly two years later, I’m not sure what to make of the fact that I’m only getting more entrenched. Starting next week, you can find my sunny American snark over at Playbook, along with Eddy Wax and Nick Vinocur. Consider yourselves warned.
It’s not you, it’s me: This beat has been one of the highlights of my career. I quite enjoy dividing my time between spin doctors and watchdogs, and I’m sorry to be stepping aside. But in the end, I had to focus on my ultimate goal: getting invited to the U.S. Mission’s Independence Day party. Chief policy correspondent, EU Influence author, EU Confidential host — none of these titles was enough to get me on the list. Becoming a Playbooker is my last, best hope.
MONEY AND POLITICS
4 TAKEAWAYS ON EUROPARTY DONATIONS: The six months before an election are a special period for campaign watchdogs: We can see the donations to the European political parties and their think tanks in real time. With just over a week to go before the voting starts, here are the key takeaways, fueled by analyses from European Democracy Consulting’s Donation Tracker and POLITICO data journalist Giovanna Coi.
 |
1 — It’s just not that much money: In total, the Europarties and their foundations have received €348,102 in outside donations between Dec. 6, 2023 and May 27, 2024 (not including contributions from national member parties). That’s less than a cent for each eligible voter in the EU — and a huge proportion of that money is going strictly to the foundations, which don’t play a role in the campaign.
“The parties are completely sidetracked. They don’t really matter,” said Louis Drounau, founder of European Democracy Consulting and its affiliated NGO.
2 — Socialized campaign: Honestly, why bother to fundraise? It takes time and effort, the rules make it hard for you to spend the money on helping your candidates — and chances are pretty good that the press is just going to ding you for selling access or worse (as we will proceed to do below). Meanwhile, in most cases, your national parties will contribute enough for you to qualify for the maximum funding from the European Parliament — only 10 percent needs to come from outside the EU budget.
Europe’s Socialists are likely to remain the second-biggest force after the election. Yet the Party of European Socialists has received no outside donations over the past six months. Its affiliated policy shop, the Foundation for European Progressive Studies, only brought only a €1,000 private donation over the past six months — and the foundations play no role in the election campaigns.
A missive earlier this year from The Good Lobby calls the lack of interest in fundraising “troubling,” noting that the Europarties were tasked by the EU treaties with informing citizens and expressing their will.
The Party of European Socialists, for its part, stands firmly behind its approach.
“The PES does not seek, nor accept, donations from individuals, foundations, NGOs, companies or other organisations,” said Secretary General Giacomo Filibeck, in a statement. “We are fully funded by our member parties and the funding provided by the European Parliament. This is our way to run a European political party and a European elections campaign in a transparent and democratic way.”
 |
3 — Corporates ❤️ ALDE: The centrist Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe is the big exception when it comes to embracing private money. As we reported, they offer a menu of sponsorships for their party events — with a package deal available for those who donate the maximum €18,000. Big Tech has been especially generous in recent months, giving heavily to both the ALDE party and its policy foundation, the European Liberal Forum, over the last six months.
“Even though as a party we do not engage in the day-to-day policymaking in the European Parliament, we believe it is important to maintain an open dialogue civil society, NGOs and the corporate sector,” said Anna Wangen, ALDE Party spokesperson. “Unlike other European political parties that hide behind their think tanks to receive corporate donations we prefer to be transparent about these activities.`”
We read that as a dig at the center-right European People’s Party, which receives considerable corporate donations through its foundation, the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies. That money can’t be used for campaigning, but the party foundations do play a role in developing policy positions — and hold events that offer schmooze time with MEPs. An EPP spokesperson stressed that the foundation and the party are separate entities.
4 — Big returns: The total amounts are relatively small — but that could mean a big payoff for donors.
“If these (little) donations are made this suggests they serve their purpose: to create privileged access,” said Alberto Alemanno, The Good Lobby founder.
SPEAKING OF CAMPAIGN SPENDING RULES: Commission President Ursula von der Leyen failed to disclose that her campaign paid for €70,000 worth of Google ads. Read more from top colleagues Mark Scott and Clothilde Goujard.
**Will the far-right be able to influence Europe's policy agenda post elections? Find out at POLITICO Live's 2024 EU election hangover brunch on June 10, where political experts will discuss the fresh results and how the next legislature will look over coffee and croissants. Last seats available now!**
REVOLVING DOORS
FROM LOBBYIST TO (ASPIRING) LAWMAKER: Why stick to writing proposed amendments for MEPs when you could be the MEP who decides whether to copy-paste them into the report? (Sorry, we have to be as cynical as possible on our last day.)
Revolving the other way: Current and former consultants are throwing their hats into the ring, vying for seats in the European Parliament next week. Among the most prominent is Aura Salla, who was head of EU affairs for Meta before successfully running for the Finnish parliament last year.
Part of the pitch: Reached by phone, Salla said she’s making her work for the Facebook owner part of her campaign. It would be “wonderful” for Europe, she said, to have some MEPs who “know how companies like Meta actually work” — especially since there are no EU equivalents so far. She’s also telling voters about her institutional knowledge: “I can start working for Finland and for the EU from Day 1.”
Unconflicted: Salla, a candidate with the European People’s Party-affiliated National Coalition Party, seemed a bit puzzled why we were asking about safeguarding against conflicts of interest, given that she’s now a Finnish MP, hasn’t worked for Meta for over a year and doesn’t own any stock in the tech giant. It hasn’t come up in the campaign, she said.
Pressed on how she’d handle, say, a proposal cheered by Meta but loathed by European tech, Salla said she’s meeting with companies from Europe and around the globe. “It’s important as an MEP — if I get elected — to understand how these companies think, of course.”
EPP’s Metaverse: Salla’s not the only Meta alumna: Dóra Dávid, a top candidate for Péter Magyar’s insurgent opposition party in Hungary, TISZA, is Meta’s associate general counsel. (TISZA is expected to try to join the EPP Group).
ROLL CALL: Based on a survey of POLITICO’s newsroom and the author’s LinkedIn network, here’s our list of current and former lobbyists, consultants and policy-adjacent pros vying for an MEP seat, listed by likely group. (Unless noted, we haven’t reached out for comment.)
European People’s Party
— Dirk Gotink, New Social Contract (The Netherlands) — Ex-EPP Group spokesman
— Sander Smit, BBB BoerBurgerBeweging (The Netherlands) — Twence shareholder relations manager and adviser
Socialists and Democrats
— Thomas Pellerin-Carlin, Place Publique (France), EU program director at the Institute for climate economics I4CE
Renew
— Federica Sabbati, Azione (Italy), European Heating Industry secretary general; former ALDE secretary general
— Graham Watson, Stati Uniti d’Europa (Italy) — former member of APCO’s International Advisory Council, British MEP and ALDE president (Watson didn’t reply to our LinkedIn message, and he seems to have left his lobbying gig off his profile.)
— Torsten Laksafoss Holbek, Venstre (Denmark), CEO of Nordic Logistics Association
— Pierre-Luc Vervandier, Renaissance (France), policy officer of the High Council for the Notarial Profession, based in Brussels
— Shannon Seban, Renaissance (France), current head of European public affairs for Altice France (per my Paris Influence colleague Paul de Villepin, although you wouldn’t know it from her LinkedIn profile)
— Lucie Rousselle, MR (Belgium), ex-Pernod Ricard (currently in Commissioner Didier Reynders cabinet)
Greens
— Suzana Carp, Volt (francophone Belgium), Cleantech for Europe deputy executive director
— Joachim Wilcke, Volt (Germany), ex-FleishmanHillard (currently an APA to Damian Boeselager)
— Zuzana Púčiková, Volt (Slovakia), ex-EVBox and Uber
Post-script — Why lobbyists ❤️ Volt: Volt is a small party, so its heavy presence on this list caught our eye. “Look, obviously there is not one answer,” said Volt Co-President Francesca Romana d’Antuono, over WhatsApp. But the bottom line is these people know how the sausage is made, and they don’t like the process even if they’re fans of the product, she suggested. “These are people that see the potential of the EU and at the same time, how its bureaucratic, unsexy, often undemocratic approach hinders its actions and alienates citizens.” (Naturally, she added that Volt has plans to fix all that.)
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
WE STILL HAVE QUESTIONS: There are many leads we never got to follow up on — rest assured, we’ll be passing them along to Elisa. But some of our questions were simply never answered, and we’re bitter about it.
ECR’S TRAVEL AGENT FANS: As we wrote in April, the European Conservatives and Reformists Party hired a Cypriot travel agency called Top Kinisis to plan its recent, EU-subsidized “Culture Weekend” in Nicosia. A Cypriot travel agency called Fivos Travel gave the maximum €18,000 donation to ECR. It sure looks to us like these two agencies are part of the same company, but ECR doesn’t agree.
This should be easy to settle: We’ve called Top Kinisis and Fivos multiple times over the past two months, seeking an answer to this yes/no question. Yet Top Kinisis HQ always refers our call to someone else, who doesn’t reply. And Fivos has stopped answering our calls, after we were repeatedly told that the owner wasn’t available.
Authority shrugs: The Authority for European Political Parties and European Political Foundations (APPF), which monitors donations, wouldn’t give us any details. An ECR official told us today that the party has not received any inquiries from the APPF.
TRANSPARENCY WASH-OUT: In February, we wrote about PubAffairsBruxelles, which appears to be a run-of-the-mill events company that purported to be all about ethics and transparency advocacy. This company never replied to our email sent at the time, nor to a follow-up we sent in late April. They appear to have updated their Transparency Register entry, but that provides no further insight on how they generate their €200,000 annual budget.
MEMORANDA OF (MIS)UNDERSTANDING: Forever ago, a source we think is pretty smart expressed some concern: The Commission has tons of bilateral association agreements and MoUs with third countries. But there’s no central collection of these deals, no way to track them and no clear department in charge of monitoring their implementation or enforcement.
Slow summer: So we wrote to Peter Stano, the Commission spokesperson in charge of foreign policy questions, in August, asking about a compendium of these deals, and how they get followed up on. That set off something of a back-and-forth — he explained that the circumstances for each agreement would be different — but we pressed that we really wanted to talk about the process for tracking these deals (or lack thereof).
Regrets, we have a few: We acknowledged a reply wasn’t urgent — hoping this would facilitate a thoughtful response. Bad move, evidently, because we then heard nothing. We prodded again in October, but received no reply. Then in December. Again, no acknowledgment.
Now, it matters: On Tuesday, we sent Stano this tweet, pointing out that our question is, indeed, relevant, nine months later.
|
|
Within hours, I received a message affirming they’re working on it.
|
|
POPPING IN THE BELGO-BUBBLE
SINGLE ISSUE VOTER: On his personal blog, Brussels lobbyist Nicholas Whyte has this hilarious (and useful) critique — from a messaging and substance perspective — of responses from Belgian parties on how they’ll deal with an issue close to Whyte’s (and this American’s) heart: Exorbitant import processing fees charged by Bpost for goods shipped from third countries.
THE OLD BOYS’ CLUB HAS, INDEED, SOME WOMEN: EU Influence reported last week that Cercle Gaulois, one of the oldest social clubs in Belgium, is set to welcome women for the first time, and that all of its 1,400 current members are men.
It’s not actually that bad: In fact, about 15 of the members are, in fact, women — ambassadors, specifically, have been eligible.
The bad news: That’s still just about one percent of all members. But the club’s president, Phillipe de Wouter, elected last year, told POLITICO’s Ketrin Jochecová that he wants to change that. “My deep opinion is that it is normal to have ladies among our members. There is no reason not to accept women, they are considered on the same basis as male candidates,” he said, adding that the decision of the general assembly to change the club’s statutes to accept women is a “very important one.”
Based on this change, the candidacy of seven women was presented (though De Wouters wouldn’t confirm who they are), and they all have to wait for a vote at the end of June.
So why did it take so long? The club was founded in 1947, but even today, only about 65 percent of the members present at the general assembly supported the change. “We have to change and adapt progressively,” said de Wouters, but admitted that he wanted to avoid external pressure, referring to the popular men’s club Garrick in London (which ended up accepting female members in May after several scandals and resignations).
**Hear about the priorities of the next Commission’s mandate on CMU and the role of non-banks on June 19, as POLITICO Live welcomes a high-level panel including Natasha Cazenave, executive director, ESMA, and Karel Lannoo, CEO, CEPS. Last chance to grab your seat!**
INFLUENCERS
AGRI-FOOD
— Gérard Benedetti has been appointed president of the European Molasses Importers and Distributors Association (EMIDAS), taking over from Eric Pintaud. His three-year term in office began on May 17.
— Ben Snelson has been promoted to communications officer for agriculture and food at the European Environmental Bureau.
CIVIL SOCIETY
— Roza Ismailai, who recently left Volt Europa, is joining the European Cultural Foundation as their new communications coordinator. She was previously with PartyParty.
— Ciara Bottomley left The Left Group in the European Parliament to join Amnesty International EU as media manager.
CONSULTING & COMMS
— Hernán Ponce Aray, former ambassador of Ecuador to the EU, joins Hague Corporate Affairs as associate partner.
— Laura Florea, founder and vice president of the Romanian Lobby Registry Association, vice president of Romanian Business Leaders, and managing partner at Point PA&PR, has become the new president of the Public Affairs Community of Europe (PACE). She will hold the function for three years.
HEALTH CARE
— Kasper Ernest will become director general at GIRP — European Healthcare Distribution Association, joining from Affordable Medicines Europe.
SUSTAINABILITY
— Agnese Danelon has been promoted to vice president, government relations relations Europe at Ecolab.
TECH
— Johannes Bahrke, who spent more than seven years as the Commission’s spokesperson for the digital economy, research and innovation, is moving to be digital counselor in the EU delegation to Washington.
THANKS TO: Pieter Haeck, Louise Guillot, Paul de Villepin, Aoife White and especially (like, massively) Ketrin Jochecová; data journalist Giovanna Coi, web producer Giulia Poloni and my editor Paul Dallison.
EPIC THANKS TO: Previous EU Influence editors Nick Vinocur and Sonya Diehn, for their support; previous EU Influence authors Lili Bayer and Cristina Gonzalez, for their guidance; and future EU Influence author Elisa Braun, for inheriting my beloved audience and mission. And to you, for reading.
SUBSCRIBE to the POLITICO newsletter family: Brussels Playbook | London Playbook | London Playbook PM | Playbook Paris | EU Election Playbook | Berlin Playbook | Global Playbook | POLITICO Confidential | Sunday Crunch | EU Influence | London Influence | Digital Bridge | China Watcher | Berlin Bulletin | D.C. Playbook | D.C. Influence | All our POLITICO Pro policy morning newsletters