A lot of organisations, firms, NGOs, consultants and lawyers will tell you that they have a great influence on the EU policy and legislation.
The claims many make give the impression that they are living embodiment of Robert Caldini’s best practices.
There is an easy way to know if someone has the positive influence on public policy and legislation that they claim.
Just pick up the phone
The easiest way is just pick up the phone and ask the lead official in the Commission, or Cabinet lead, if they know the organisation/person; and if they know them, ask if they have the positive influence.
Over the years, I’ve been amazed at the claims of influence being made by some people. I’ve worked on legislation and never encountered many of the people who assure others that they had a ‘pivotal role’ in the final law. They played this role so well that they influenced my drafting of the final legal text by telepathy.
I’ve spoken to Cabinet leads on a major legislative file and asked “What is your view of [x] organisation on this file? Did they have any influence on the law?” The answer was “Aaron, never heard of them. We know they exist, we just have no idea what do they do. What do they do?” This was from an organisation that spent a small fortune in the EU not-influencing and not persuading anyone who made the key decisions on their key file.
I’ve asked the lead official on a file whether they have met the people who claim to have the leading role on a policy area in Brussels. Again, the answer was “I’ve never dealt with them, which says it all”.
Recently, I read the claims of influence by one consultant on a file that I took to be a new genre of creative fiction writing.
So, before you decide to spend a lot of time or money on issue, you may want to just ask the lead official or Cabinet lead if the person, firm, NGO, organisation, consultant, or lawyer really has the influence that they claim to have. If you do this one thing, you’ll save yourself a lot of time, and money.