Brussels is a very leaky city.
The question is, should you put much stock in the leaks?
Many leaks are authorised. They are a valuable means to get feedback on a draft proposal.
Leaks will have trackers in them to reveal the source. The weird typo or puncutation mark is deliberate. So, if you are given a copy, don’t send it everywhere. It will reveal the person who gave you the document.
As a lot of the Inter-Service Consultations are now compressed down to 10 days, and usually 48 hours, the time to act is limited.
As you can see from The Working Methods (p.4), your chances to influence a text are limited.
Three Real Chances
- Either you have your ask inserted into the text transferred by the Services for when the Special Chefs meet about the file on a Thursday.
- At the Special Chefs on a Thursday. Usually, the text is fixed here.
- The agreements signed off here can be revised overnight/days.
- Exceptionally, there will be a discussion during the Heads of Cabinet.
- And, even more exceptionally, there is a discussion in the College. This is as likely as the Rond Pont Schuman road works being finished this year, to a good quality.
So, your chances of influencing a proposal are limited to a very narrow window of opportunity. In essence, three.
How I use leaks
When I worked for WWF on fisheries, I found that engaging with the Cabinets on a Thursday was particularly effective. Witht the benefit of a leak, on a Monday, I would send them a letter, pointing out why some subsidies to a corprate welfare programme for the industrial fleet, contradicted the Commission’s own stated agenda, a specific Commissioner’s stated political views, and added some helpful data to show that the Commission’s sums were way off the mark. I’m told that several Cabinet members, often at the instruction of their Commissioner, then read out WWF’s position on a specific Article, as if it were their own. WWF’s Panda letterhead was a little too obvious.
Unless you plan to engage in direct advocacy with the Commission at the Cabinet level, I see little benefit in obtaining the leak. If it is to read as a historical document about the evolution of a proposal, so be it. But, few lobbyists or their clients are amateur public policy historians in their spare time.
It may help you prepare a short outline of the possible proposal after the College endorses it on a Tuesday or Wednesday. However, this is subject to the caveat that the text may be added or removed. And, on any sensitive file, over the decades, a lot of important things can change in a very short period.
The essence of a new proposal can usually be summarised in around 30 minutes.