BRUSSELS-You've heard plenty about their battles with the Bush
Administration over global warming and missile defense, but the
issue that really has Europeans in an uproar these days is
exploding television sets. At least that's the view being pushed
by the global public relations and lobbying firm Burson-
Marsteller, which has been waging a campaign on behalf of its
clients in the bromine industry against legislation in the
European Union that would ban the chemical as a flame retardant
in household appliances.
Burson-Marsteller's lobbyists and their clients, which
include Great Lakes Chemical Corp. and the Dead Sea Bromine
Group, have a big fight on their hands. The regulation is being
pushed by the Green Party-a powerful force in Western Europe-and
has the support of several countries. Critics of bromine are
concerned because the chemical is toxic and they fear it will
leach into the environment. After wending its way through the
European Union's three governmental bodies, the bill is now going
before the EU Parliament for a second time.
During its long campaign, Burson-Marsteller has created
the Bromine Science and Environmental Forum, which publishes
scientific studies and has an annual conference. It has also
established the Alliance for Consumer Fire Safety in Europe,
which operates a Web site in English, French, Dutch, and German.
The site gives examples of horrific fires from around the
Continent, and implies that the combustion of household products
causes 4,000 deaths and 80,000 injuries in Europe each year.
"This is an incredibly technical piece of legislation,"
said Jeremy Galbraith, who heads the Burson-Marsteller lobbying
operation in this city that serves as the European Union's
capital. After four years of public relations and lobbying, he
said, the firm is making "progress" in demonstrating the benefits
of bromine to European Union officials.
That the European Union became engulfed in this lobbying
battle royal over such a narrow issue might surprise people in
the U.S. policy world. If the bromine initiative arose in
Washington, it would likely be stuck in the bowels of a
regulatory agency and not in Congress. Were it to get to Capitol
Hill, industry lobbyists could probably quash the legislation by
applying political pressure or by neutralizing it during the
appropriations process.
But as American companies are slowly learning, the rules
of the influence trade are very different in the European Union
from what they are in Washington.
Indeed, for most Washingtonians, the European Union is
hard to fathom. When the European Union's actions do attract
notice in the United States-such as in the recent scuttling of
the merger between General Electric Co. and Honeywell
International Inc.-they are usually greeted with shock and
indignation and then explained away as being driven by politics,
protectionism, and elitism. But in fact, the quashing of the
merger by Brussels, and the astonishment it generated on the
other side of the Atlantic, shows that U.S. corporations are
often behind the curve in figuring out how to play the influence
game at the European Union.
Eighty percent of the regulations that affect businesses
in Europe originate with the European Union, according to the
public affairs firm Hill & Knowlton. Yet it is only in the past
few years that U.S. companies peddling their wares in Europe's
340 million-person market have started to realize that they can
no more ignore regulators and politicians in Brussels than they
can their counterparts in Washington. This summer, for instance,
the European Union's reach has ranged far beyond merger approvals
to issues such as food safety, securities regulation, and the
prohibiting of television advertisements aimed at children. In
late August, European Union regulators moved against Microsoft
Corp., arguing that the software giant was attempting to
monopolize the browser market on the Continent.
And yet this is a world largely without campaign
contributions, where the revolving door would be considered
crass, and where "astroturf"-the American practice in which
industry lobbyists manufacture grassroots support for their
clients-is almost nonexistent.
Although the internal dynamics of lobbying differ
considerably in Brussels from those in Washington, the overriding
principles of access and influence remain constant. Both cities
operate in a bubble, little understood or observed by the public,
where often-overworked and understaffed politicians and
bureaucrats decide on complex policy issues. Thus in both places,
lobbyists exercise influence as providers of substantive
information and political intelligence.
But as some of the biggest U.S. companies have been slow
to learn, simply transporting K Street tactics and personnel to
Brussels can be a recipe for failure. As early as March, Euro
lobbyists were talking about how General Electric CEO Jack
Welch's bluster over the proposed GE-Honeywell merger had
poisoned the waters with European officials, repeating mistakes
made by executives from Monsanto Co. and Coca-Cola Co. in
previous years. Even Jack Valenti, the president of the Motion
Picture Association of America, who is regarded as a paragon of K
Street smooth, made serious mistakes during his visit to the
European Union several years ago when trying to counter French-
led attempts to curtail the invasion of American movies. The U.S.
film industry, according to a Brussels lobbyist for a
multinational entertainment company, is still trying to regain
ground lost by Valenti. "Valenti talked about culture as if it
was a commodity to be traded," said the lobbyist. "We are still
in a post-Jack recovery mode, even years later."
Different Geometry
For lobbyists who touch down
in Brussels, navigating the European Union system is in some ways geometrically
more complicated than lobbying in the United States. In Washington, although
Republicans and Democrats constantly vie for control, the general lines of
power are firmly established. Issues and players vary, but one lobby campaign
follows much the same format as another. Not so in the still-evolving European
Union, formed in 1993, where lobbyists face a monumental task in simply trying
to figure out where to focus their efforts.
"In Washington lobbying, you get access to people. In
Brussels lobbying, you get people who show you the way through
the big, untransparent maze," said Maurits Bruggink, the managing
director of the Brussels lobbying shop Grayling Political
Strategy. K Street's trend of going bipartisan isn't enough here:
The 12 lobbyists in Bruggink's office hail from seven different
countries and speak nine different languages. Bruggink, who is
Dutch, speaks five languages himself. Grayling, which is
headquartered in London, has offices in seven countries.
The nature of lobbying on the Continent is different-and
so are the fees, which fall on the low end of the K Street scale.
Brussels firms report hourly charges of from $100 to $200, and
monthly fees ranging from $5,000 to $10,000.
The entity called the European Union is actually made up
of a variety of institutions, all vying with each other for
power; even defining where power begins and ends is difficult. In
cases ranging from human rights to banking, EU officials have
issued guidelines that member states interpret and put into law.
How they choose to do so can vary widely. In other instances,
though, such as the fight over the use of bromine as a flame
retardant, the European Union spends many months debating narrow
issues that are smaller than anything that would rise to the
level of a congressional floor debate.
For lobbyists, there are three vital EU decision-making
bodies. The Council of Ministers is composed of leaders from
member nations and senior Cabinet officials who propose and
approve legislation. The European Commission is the giant
multinational bureaucracy that promulgates regulations. And the
625-member European Parliament has taken on an increasingly
powerful oversight role, particularly on environmental and
consumer affairs issues. Within these institutions are members
who hold allegiances to a multitude of political parties, among
them Socialists, Greens, Thatcherite Conservatives, and ultra-
rightists. EU regulators are technically nonpartisan, but are
quite activist by American standards. As many companies have
learned, while they may have the support of one EU body, another
always seems ready to pop up and make life difficult with
inconvenient laws and rules.
Consider the case of Disney Co., which is fighting a
Swedish effort to enact a European-wide ban on television
commercials aimed at children. Such a ban would be unthinkable in
the United States, but it makes perfect sense in Sweden, where
the government long ago enacted this prohibition. Greece,
Belgium, Denmark, and Italy are expected to join Sweden in
pushing for the restrictions. Disney and other companies that
market to children, such as Mars Inc., MTV Networks, and Coca-
Cola, are fighting the proposed restrictions on the grounds that
children's programming depends on advertising revenues. On a more
philosophical level, the companies are also arguing that such a
ban would violate the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The drawn-out and contentious policy-making process in
Brussels further complicates influence-peddling. These days,
European lobbyists are focusing their efforts on Parliament,
which has gained power in the past few years. Elaine Cruikshanks,
Hill & Knowlton's European chairman, noted in a recent article
that Parliament has become a favorite for lobbyists because it
"is open and accessible and has members with relatively few staff
to support them," and the members are thus eager for input from
helpful lobbyists. To Washington lobbyists, that probably sounds
a lot like Capitol Hill.
Many Players
The aspect that is perhaps most underestimated by U.S. companies
is the European Union's essential makeup: The union consists of
15 sovereign countries, which, unlike American states, do not
share the same underlying ideological and economic interests.
American lobbyists often focus on decision makers in Brussels
without realizing that it is equally, if not more important, to
concentrate first on the capitals of some or all of the 15 member
nations-all the countries of Western Europe, except Norway and
Switzerland.
"If I want a positive outcome, I have to have the message
coming from the member states," said Ivan Hodac, a Czech who runs
AOL Time Warner's lobbying operation in Brussels and whose other
lobbyists are from Spain, Italy, and Holland.
In Washington, campaign contributions and entrenched
party politics enable most issues to be dealt with in a few
congressional cycles as companies hire lobbyists who can enlist
the help of the party leadership and the relevant committee
chairmen, regardless of what state they are from. But for a
company in trouble in Europe, it is not simply a matter of hiring
the local Haley Barbour, Tommy Boggs, or other star lobbyist to
straighten out the mess. Given the European Union's decentralized
nature, it is hard to imagine that such a person exists.
The golden rule of Euro lobbying is to get four things
right: timing, intelligence, targeting, and sensitivity, said
veteran EU lobbyist David Earnshaw, who had been a senior
parliamentary aide for a Socialist member and then worked as a
lobbyist for pharmaceutical giant SmithKline Beecham.
Connections simply do not mean as much in Brussels,
because of the high number of players and because the policy-
making process is drawn out and consensus-based. Slipping in a
last-minute provision or neutering a bill in appropriations is
usually not an option. European lobbyists place much less
importance on "getting a meeting" than do their American
counterparts. One lobbyist for a U.S. investment bank maintains
that the bank has well-connected former high-level officials on
retainer in almost every European country. "We can get access to
anybody we want to," said the American. But most European
lobbyists scoff at such claims, emphasizing that technical
knowledge and a good case are more important than political
connections.
Lobbying in Brussels is more low-key than in the United
States, said Cruikshanks. "It's much more workmanlike, I would
say. We are not the stars-the client is." Cruikshanks said that
the role of her lobbyists-who, as a group, speak nine of the 11
EU languages-is to act as facilitators.
For Americans, adjusting to this different culture takes
time. One lobbyist for a U.S. company that is currently under
fire said she uses a European firm because "a lot of times I
don't want to show my face. You send people in so as not to leave
fingerprints." In Washington, corporations and industries often
send out hired guns with political connections to fix problems
with the government. But this is not an accepted practice in
Brussels, where most European lobbyists say they rarely talk to
officials on behalf of their clients. In fact, lobbyists say they
often do not even accompany their clients to meetings. A lobbyist
for a European liquor trade group expressed horror at the idea of
sending an advocate on his industry's behalf.
"When you go and talk to politicians here, they like to
see the whites of your eyes," said Ken Baker, who lobbies for
Monsanto in Brussels. Baker, a New Zealander, speaks French,
Dutch, Italian, and some German, and said he is perceived as a
fellow European.
Even that sacred K Street tradition, the revolving door,
is a rarity for Euro lobbying shops. Europeans have a
professional bureaucracy, and the concept that regulators might
cash in by going to work for corporations they once oversaw is a
foreign one. Further, old contacts can go stale, as the
presidency of the Council of Ministers rotates among countries
every six months, and the heads of the Commission's various
agencies are reappointed every five years. One head of a lobby
shop said she prefers to hire not former legislators but former
journalists, because they tend to have a broad range of contacts
and know how to write.
Of course, politicians here are no strangers to the
backroom deal and the under-the-table envelope. Last year, the
Commission was dissolved in a cloud of scandal and then
reorganized, while corruption at the highest levels was revealed
recently in France and Germany.
The American system involves the widespread passing of
money through mostly regulated (and disclosed) campaign
contributions. Comparing their work to that of their Washington
counterparts, Brussels lobbyists point to the lack of campaign
donations as the biggest difference. Corporations can give money
to political parties in most European countries, but they are
usually limited in their donations to individuals, as much by
custom as by law. Another difference is that European politicians
do not face the same fundraising pressures as Americans do: David
Robert Bowe, a two-term British member of the European
Parliament, said that his last campaign cost 30,000-about
$43,000.
In England, where the public is quite sensitive to any
perceived ties between government and industry, a few
intermediaries have popped up to facilitate contact. "There is a
lot more suspicion of vested corporate interests influencing the
democratic process here," said Phil Royal, a lobbyist with the
London firm of Butler Kelly, who directs the Environment Forum, a
bipartisan group that brings together companies and politicians.
The group holds dinners and lunches so that corporate
representatives can chat informally with regulatory officials and
members of Parliament.
While the lack of campaign contributions removes a
crucial tool from the lobbyist's tool kit, American corporations
face an even bigger difficulty: learning to negotiate the
European Union and its multilateral policy-making process. Each
of the union's 15 member states has substantial power to push
through or veto policy initiatives. Brent Staples, who heads the
Brussels office of APCO Worldwide, a huge PR and lobbying firm,
compares EU lobbying to "three-dimensional chess." And that means
that public opinion often plays a greater role here than in the
United States, particularly on environmental issues. Burson-
Marsteller, for instance, created a unit dedicated to working on
environmental issues, the company's only such issue-specific
division.
Indeed, American companies often hit a wall when
confronted by the fact that many European countries are social
democracies built on very different political foundations from
those of the United States. Thus, when a company tries to make
the case that its position will benefit the general populace,
invoking the name of the Chamber of Commerce or the National
Association of Manufacturers does not carry the same cachet as it
does in Washington. A recent article in The New York Times on the
Daimler-Chrysler merger pointed out that American executives were
shocked that their German counterparts were used to dining in the
same company cafeterias as low-level employees. For American
lobbyists in Brussels struggling to form a personal connection
with European officials, the differing political mores can be
confounding.
"There is a whole kind of underlying socialist suspicion"
of corporations, said a lobbyist for a U.S. investment bank.
"Consumers are treated like children in Europe. It's all part of
the tradition of Big Government here."
The American penchant for trying to substitute self-
regulation for government oversight has little credibility with
officials in Brussels, who tend to take the view that companies
will misbehave if left to themselves. But it's not only European
regulators who hold this view. Bertel Heerink, government affairs
director for the European Chemical Industry Council, said that
public demands for corporate responsibility have caused his group
to publicly disagree with at least one of its American members,
ExxonMobil Corp., which is seeking to eliminate a variety of
regulations on chemicals."Sometimes you come to the limit of
where you can stretch" in terms of principle versus public
perception, Heerink said. "It's the political reality of today."
Environmentalists Hold Sway
Corporate lobbyists in the European Union also face an obstacle
that does not exist in the United States: a powerful
environmental and consumer movement that has elected members of
governments. The green movement began in Germany, the industrial
giant; France fights heated trade wars on behalf of family
farmers and fresh pastries; and England, home of Thatcherism and
privatization, is also a nation of militant bird-watchers and
gardening-club members.
"You have U.S. companies that don't see it in the U.S.,
and it comes as a terribly rude shock to them in Europe," said
Gavin Grant, a managing director at Burson-Marsteller's London
office, who formerly worked on cruelty-to-animal issues for an
NGO. "Often, American corporations don't understand the pace at
which this stuff moves over here."
No company has learned that lesson better than Monsanto,
the St. Louis-based agriculture concern whose bioengineered seeds
became the focal point for continent-wide protests in Europe in
the 1990s against corporate globalization. The company's attempts
to respond only made things worse; currently, the European Union
has a ban on introducing new genetically modified seeds.
At the root of Monsanto's problems were an entrenched
hubris and a tin ear as to how its products and actions were
being perceived across the Atlantic-this, according to Monsanto's
own lobbyists. The fact that the company was stacked with past
Clinton Administration officials, including former Commerce
Secretary Mickey Kantor and former senior White House aide Marcia
Hale, got the company access, but little more.
"These senior executives thought they could just walk in
and buy [British officials] a glass of champagne and charm them,"
said Evie Soames, a lobbyist at BSMG, which has represented
Monsanto in England for four years. "I got to the point where I
was trying not to arrange meetings for them."
Ann Foster, a British lobbyist who formerly worked in-
house for Monsanto and still does work for the company, recalled
the frustrations she went through in trying to explain the
culture clash to her American colleagues. She said she found
herself saying "that whatever tried-and-tested methods had worked
in the past were not going to work now. We had to explain to them
that what seemed entirely normal behavior wasn't going to work
now and came across as bullying."
Ultimately, said Monsanto spokesman Tony Combes, the
company's bad press dried up only because "we stopped talking."
These days, the company conducts its governmental and public
communications through European trade associations such as
CropGen and EuropaBio.
From this debacle, Monsanto also learned the lesson that
public relations, rather than legal clout, plays a crucial role
in policy advocacy in Europe. Perhaps the most noticeable thing
about the Brussels lobbying community is the lack of lawyers;
there are virtually no Washington law firms with significant
public policy profiles in Brussels. (The law firms tend to be
relegated to regulatory matters such as antitrust.) Rather,
public relations companies that have presences in both Washington
and Brussels are far and away the largest firms. The strong
standing of the PR industry in Brussels is especially surprising
given that in Washington, the use of PR firms is more often than
not an afterthought; they are brought in when the damage is
already done. Their lobbying arms tend to be dismissed as
decorative add-ons to increase the firm's attractiveness to
clients.
For the big PR firms-APCO, Burson-Marsteller, and Hill &
Knowlton-setting up a public affairs practice in Brussels was a
logical step. All of the firms already had good coverage in many
other European capitals, giving them an important source of
intelligence and cultural understanding. In Brussels, legislation
gets tossed between the Commission, the Council of Ministers, and
the Parliament so many times that large-scale image and
coalition-building campaigns often make more sense than rifle-
shot lobbying. With the power in the hands of so many,
intelligence-gathering and strategy take precedence over access
and influence.
PR's Limits
But PR has its limits. Procter & Gamble's chief lobbyist in
Brussels, Erik Jonnaert, said that while he keeps Hill & Knowlton
and APCO on retainer, he does not use them as much as he used to.
Jonnaert said he initially hired the PR firms to help make
contacts, but he has now developed his own. These days, he uses
the firms to monitor issues and gather political intelligence.
But even these roles are sometimes not useful, because as the
Commission has become more transparent in its workings, the PR
firms sometimes end up providing him with information that he
could easily have found on his own.
"There's a lot of insider's knowledge required to be
effective, and that's why consultants can be important," Jonnaert
said. He initially tried using the PR giants throughout Europe,
but they did not always have the necessary contacts. Now he
chooses lobby shops by country capital, based on which has the
best local contacts. Jonnaert said he has also had problems when
agency employees handling his account have left to work for
competitors. There's a "competitive advantage to building up
expertise in-house, rather than relying on agencies," he said.
These days, he relies mostly on his in-house lobbying
group, which is based in a huge Procter & Gamble research and
administrative compound on the outskirts of Brussels. P&G also
has lobbyists in Germany and England.
In Washington, most of these corporate lobbyists would
have come off the Hill or from the relevant federal agencies. In
Procter & Gamble's case, however, only two of the seven in the
Brussels group used to work at the European Commission-one for
the consumer policy directorate, the other for a leading member
of Parliament who is active on consumer issues. The rest of the
lobbyists have scientific backgrounds. The expertise of these
lobbyists from Germany, Belgium, and Britain is attractive
because some of Procter & Gamble's biggest current EU lobbying
issues deal with the ongoing revisions to regulations governing
chemicals, and with a ban on marketing goods tested on animals.
But lobbyists such as Earnshaw, the former aide to a
Socialist member of the British Parliament, thinks it will be
some time before most American lobbyists and their corporate
clients become truly effective in Brussels. Earnshaw, who has
worked in the past for corporate clients but who is now the chief
lobbyist for the global charity organization Oxfam International,
said that the United States is rooted in the ideology of free
markets and a hostile view of regulation, both of which come into
sharp conflict with fundamental European Union values.
"The American context is so neoliberal that it is very
hard for any American, whether they are a consumer organization
or a corporation, to understand what drives Europeans," he said.
Research for this article was funded in
part by the German Marshall Fund of the United States.