Archive
Year: 2015
-
Decrypting the EU Energy Jargon
April 28, 2015
I love words. I work in public affairs and communications, so I love words. As public affairs consultants, we write all day long. We write, rewrite, rephrase, edit, amend, tweak, this is all we do: we play with words, we build strong cases and look for convincing arguments. Read industry position papers and Commissioners’ speeches, they use the same jargon. This jargon is comfortable. It gives us an ‘esprit de corps’, as it were. However...
-
5 ways the (digital) bubble will change as of this week
April 20, 2015
And suddenly things are moving in Brussels. A more political EU institutional culture. A louder call for lobbying transparency. And a would-be media powerhouse ready to "dominate." For public affairs practitioners,the changes afoot in the Brussels bubble could have wide-reaching implications on how things are done here. On the digital side, we can expect exciting times. Here's what I think our online future will look like. https://www.slideshare.net/BrettKobie/5-ways-the-digital-brussels-bubble-will-change-as-of-today ...
-
The Finnish Effect – What Finland’s elections can tell us about the Future of European Politics
April 17, 2015
2015 promises to be a year of change. With elections fast approaching in Finland, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Spain, Poland and Ireland voters seem to want to reject the status quo. While everyone is talking about the Greek debt negotiations and the rise of Podemos in Spain, in the North of Europe, an important election has skipped many people’s radar. Finland, Europe’s tough fiscal hawk, is likely to face a change of government after Sunday’s...
-
Stuff I’m hearing around the Brussels bubble in Spring 2015
April 14, 2015
It’s an exciting time to work in public policy in the Brussels bubble. Based on the many conversations I’ve had this year, I would (very unscientifically) say that about 20% of this town feels like we’ve just mounted a massive wave of change and 80% is kind of shrugging that off and just doing business as usual. I’ll leave the analysis for another day (in fact, it would be nice if some major media would cover...
-
Snowden and Oliver confirm that a relatable story is a winning story
April 8, 2015
“The US government may have nude pictures of you or your loved ones. Do you mind?” On Sunday, US television network HBO aired John Oliver’s interview with Edward Snowden, the man who in 2013, blew the whistle on the extent of the US government’s mass surveillance capabilities. Oliver explained to Snowden that most Americans didn’t care about what he had done and cheekily challenged him to cut through his jargon and tell a simple, relatable story to...
-
35 Days to the UK General Election: The View from Westminster
April 1, 2015
With 35 days to go, Labour and the Tories remain neck-and-neck in the polls, to the internal frustration of some Labour politicians, who recognize that the party should be faring much better by now, given the persistence of its anti-austerity rhetoric. As such, it continues to be clear that neither main party will secure enough votes to form a majority government-paving the way for small parties to hold the balance of power on May 8th. ...
-
Online video services in the crosshairs of the European Commission
March 26, 2015
As part of its wide-ranging digital single market strategy, the European Commission is considering introducing regulations which would bring about major changes for on-demand video providers like Netflix or Amazon Instant Video. The Commission Vice-President for the Digital Single Market Andrus Ansip has firmly set his sights on the practice of geo-blocking, claiming it’s unfair that citizens across Europe can’t access the same digital services on equal terms. With the European Commission committed to ambitious...
-
Diversifying Europe’s Natural Gas Supply
March 17, 2015
On Thursday 2 April, FleishmanHillard Brussels hosts a luncheon-debate on ‘Diversifying Europe’s Natural Gas Supply: Challenges and Opportunities’. Against the backdrop of the publication of the Energy Union Package, two EU energy policy experts, Joachim Balke, member of Climate & Energy Commission Miguel Arias Cañete’s Cabinet in charge of ‘Gas Supply, including third country relations and security of supply’, and Matthew Hinde, Head of EU strategy at the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change...
-
2015 A new beginning for EU chemicals legislation?
March 13, 2015
On 10 March 2015 the Commission completed a survey on the impact of the REACH legislation on EU competitiveness which it launched in February. The Commission asked Europe’s industry a simple question: how much does REACH cost your business? Throughout 2015 the Commission will conduct other surveys, consultations and assessments like this one. The objective is clear: to make EU chemicals legislation an instrument of the industry’s competitiveness. Is your organisation making its voice heard...
-
This is EU public affairs in the age of transparency
March 12, 2015
Brussels has changed and the public affairs profession has changed along with it. If the act of interacting with and attempting to influence policy stakeholders was once simply a question of quietly getting to know the right people, it may now be considered a much more complex practice during which one’s motives, reputation and relevance are constantly called into question by a diverse group of decision makers, competitors and NGO watchdogs. At the same time...