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We recently held our third policy and advocacy networking lunch meeting with our members on how to make our advocacy activities towards EU decision-makers more effective. This time we met with high level officials of three Directorate-Generals (DGs) of the European Commission.

What have we learnt from this exchange?

First of all, sometimes civil society organisations (CSOs) tend to be ideological and make statements without providing evidence. The Commission benefits from many sources, for instance academic research and consultancies. However, CSOs are well positioned to bring a specific added-value to EU policy-making that other stakeholders do not have; the capacity to provide information and evidence about what happens on the ground, at national, regional and local levels, and to put forward the voice of people, including sensitive cases. This is one feature that makes CSOs precious to the EU institutions. In this way, CSOs can also build their legitimacy from the ground. To maximise our impact, as CSOs we should not limit our advocacy actions to the European level; we should get organised to reach out to the national, regional and local levels, too.

Secondly, we should focus on one key objective. A good example that was mentioned was the capacity of one of our members to drive the Commission’s attention to homelessness. From this, we can learn that we have to be relevant, focus on substantial issues and gaps, and provide concrete recommendations. The Commission representatives also encouraged us not to focus on processes.

Thirdly, we should communicate with short and clear key messages in a timely manner. Concise documents and the need to act in a timely fashion were recommendations also pointed out to us by representatives of the Council of the EU back in May. We should be consistent with messages delivered to different DGs and different levels.

A fourth recommendation was to engage in lobbying not only in the preparation of legislation, but also in the implementation phase, by channeling information and testimonies from the ground about implementation and enforcement of policies and legislation. We should continue building allies to support our positions, including Members of the European Parliament. The work on the Equal Treatment Directive was mentioned as an excellent example.

As a fifth point, we should consult the Commission’s work programmes to find out about upcoming initiatives, and invite high level Commission’s representatives to inform us about their priorities. The Better Regulation Agenda is a tool of which we can make more effective use.

Finally, it was pointed out that CSOs have been an extremely important actor in the design of the European Social Fund. They have made some ex-ante conditionalities (e.g. the shift from institutional care to community-based services) and the partnership principle very important in the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF). The partnership principle is now supposed to also apply to the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) as well as Internal Security Funds (ISF). By working together, we can improve the implementation of EU Funds.

Nurturing a culture of dialogue between the EU institutions and CSOs is a continuous process that requires time, energy and resources, but in the medium- and long-term it pays off for both. For this reason, we should avoid working only with the DGs we know and engage with different DGs to build trust, expand and strengthen the benefits of this dialogue.