I’ve realised of late that a lot of people are sent over to Brussels to work in public affairs who have never worked in the role before, or have no idea how the EU works.
Being thrown in at the deep end is not a pleasant experience.
I think the easiest and quickest way to learn how the EU system works and how to influence it is to read two books. If I were sent to some far-flung country and told to work influencing regulators and politicians on an issue I had no idea about, I spend a lot of time learning and getting up to speed quickly.
Now, when I recommend reading them, I mean digesting the writer’s ideas in deep thought. I don’t think you can take the information from the pages of a book by just laying your hands on the front cover.
If you think spending several hours in focused reading is too much bother, you are probably in the wrong line of work.
I recommend two recent books. I call them the Organe and the Purple Book.
Edited by Erik Akse.
Edited by Alan Hardacre
In the interests of transparency, I contributed to the Purple Book.
The alternative I guess is to spend a few years bluffing it, think the system is rigged against you (it is not), and wait to be rotated out of Brussels ASAP.