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This blog was originally published on VoteWatch Europe.

Pushing forward the European Union’s social agenda is easier said than done, as pretty much any social NGO will testify. Considered an area of ‘soft power’, the lack of EU assertiveness on social affairs is even reflected in our own lexicon, with social NGOs always ‘advocating’ for things rather than ‘lobbying’ like our private sector counterparts. Social Platform, the largest civil society alliance fighting for social justice and participatory democracy in Europe, invited representatives of the European Parliament, Council and Commission to speak to us and our members and share their top tips for successful advocacy towards the EU institutions. Here’s a taste of what they told us:

Less ideology, more evidence

Very few people would say that they are against principles such as democracy, equality and human dignity. EU leaders are often already on our side in ideological arguments, but what we tend to lack is the evidence to back up our rights-based positions. We have experienced it ourselves; we are part of a group of civil society organisations that meet with European Commission First Vice-President Frans Timmermans. The First Vice-President is, of course, very supportive of fundamental rights, and has highlighted the importance of presenting concrete and innovative recommendations and supportive evidence of the reality on the ground so that he can take action. This is where the true added-value of social NGOs takes centre stage; our connection with the grassroots level allows us to provide information and evidence about the impact of EU policies on individuals and groups.

Strength isn’t necessarily in numbers

Coalition building is an important activity and gives our cases increased legitimacy and exposure. It can lead to advocacy successes that would have been much less likely if acted upon alone; for example, Social Platform’s work with the European Trade Union Confederation, the European Centre of Employers and Enterprises providing Public Services and the European Public Service Union led to the European Parliament adopting our call for a ‘gold standard’ clause to protect services of general interest in EU trade deals. However, too much of a good thing is possible; a common problem encountered by member-based organisations is consensus-building leading to weakened positions. A message with a large quantity of supporters is not always enough if it lacks quality..

Take the time to personalise

We’ve all been there – an email lands in your inbox requesting action, but it’s also been sent to numerous other people, so you calmly file it away on the assumption that someone else will deal with it. This is the danger we face by sending generic, non-personalised emails to decision-makers. To drastically increase the likelihood that a Commissioner or Minister will not only read your email but also act upon it, make sure that you explain why the issue is important for their individual portfolio or Member State.

The merits of measurables

Measuring impact in the field of social rights is a difficult thing to do. Impacting policy when a lot of the power lies with national governments can be a long process, and although an advocacy campaign may be full of successes they might not always be so obvious; for example, awareness raising among target groups of the general public can be difficult without the resources to carry out a survey. It’s important to develop indicators, milestones and other impact assessment and qualitative evaluation tools to monitor and evaluate success throughout the whole advocacy process. As well as being able to determine where we are doing well, it allows us to see which techniques and styles of messaging don’t work for certain target groups.

A lot of these recommendations may seem to be stating the obvious, but the fact that they were put forward by EU institution representatives at our meetings suggests that the problems are more widespread than you would expect. As well as social NGOs reflecting on the way we work, there is one significant action the EU institutions can take to make themselves more accessible to us: setting up an inter-institutional mechanism for civil dialogue. The legal basis for such an agreement already exists in the shape of Article 11 of Treaty on European Union, which states that the institutions must “maintain an open, transparent and regular dialogue with representative associations and civil society”.

Social partners – employer and employee representatives – have a similar mechanism in place; the social dialogue was set up by the Treaty Establishing the European Community, Article 138, which states, “before submitting proposals in the social policy field, the Commission shall consult management and labour on the possible direction of Community action.” Social policy goes far beyond the realm of employment, which is why it is vital that social NGOs are given more opportunities to influence social policy in its design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. Seven years after the Lisbon Treaty was ratified, the institutions still take a hotchpotch approach to involvement of civil society. By involving civil society organisations in decision-making processes, the EU can rebuild trust with citizens across Europe over time and strengthen its legitimacy, accountability and credibility.