EU legislative monitoring tools: a false sense of security?

In an increasingly digital, technology-driven world, the EU Public Affairs profession is also evolving and becoming more digital (see the European Digital Advocacy Trends Survey Report by the Public Affairs Council). A large number of EU monitoring tools has entered the market in the past decade, helping organisations keep track of EU legislative and policy developments in order to anticipate them.

Why is EU monitoring important?

Since information is the main source of influence, the way organisations organise their EU monitoring is of vital importance. Their EU monitoring and information management system is the main instrument with which organisations can manage regulatory risks affecting their organisation. EU legislation can have a serious impact on organisations in terms of costs, lost revenues, processes, systems and reputation. Therefore, it is important for organisations to be aware which relevant proposals are in the pipeline (or even better: pre-pipeline) and to anticipate them by either "taking or shaping" EU legislation (early anticipation is key). Without proper EU monitoring and intelligence, you cannot influence proposed EU legislation succesfully. It is the basis of everything.

Below EU monitoring tools use a combination of data-mining, AI and statistical analysis to deliver a variety of monitoring products or features. These features differ but generally consist of a monitoring dashboard, an e-mail alert & briefings function, a forward planner/calendar of relevant meetings, analytics and sometimes a CRM tool and social media monitoring. Some use visualisations, which can be very insightful.

List of well-known commercial EU monitoring tools

• ANP EU Monitor
• Politico Pro
• EUissuetracker.com (Fiscalnote Europe)
• Dods EU Monitoring
• DeHavilland EU
• One Policy Place
• Quorum EU

Companies behind EU monitoring tools promise a variety of things, usually a combination of saving time, not missing relevant information ("no surprises") and having all relevant information together in one place. While some of these claimed advantages are (partly) true, it is important to realize they are SUPPORT tools and they cannot replace the checks, analysis and interpretation made by EU public affairs professionals.

Often organisations think having an EU monitoring tool automatically makes them "EU proof", giving them a false sense of security.

"we have an EU monitoring tool and now we don't miss anything anymore". Yeah, right!

Why? well, let's look at some of the drawbacks of EU monitoring tools.

Drawbacks of using commercial EU monitoring tools

1. Summaries of EC proposals are not YOUR summaries

Monitoring tools provide a summary of the European Commission's proposal, namely a general summary taken from another source (such as Oeil). However, this is not YOUR summary. What is needed is a summary with the elements that will impact YOUR organisation. These elements may very well be completely absent in the general summary, potentially costing you millions (if you would rely on this summary). Same goes for impact assessment summaries.

2. State of play is not precise enough for lobbying purposes

The state of play listed in the file or dossier for a certain legislative development is usually not precise enough for lobbying purposes and too general. If you don't know the exact state of play, you do not know whom to lobby, where and with what. To find this out, you have to do additional research.

3. Stakeholder mapping is too limited

Only a part of the relevant stakeholders are listed in the stakeholder map provided. Usually these are the relevant Commissioner and EP-rapporteurs and shadows. If lucky the EC head of unit, but almost never the "chef de dossier" / draftsperson, group coordinators, political group policy advisors for the committee and other relevant staff. So, if you would only influence the listed stakeholders by the tool, you would miss a considerable number of key actors on the file.

4. Relying on the keyword filter can make you miss relevant proposals

One of the most frequently used filter options to find relevant legislative proposals is filtering by keyword. Many organisations use the filter by keyword option. However, this is quite risky. It is possible that a certain legislative proposal will affect your organisation without showing up through one of your keywords.

5. Cost

The cost of a annual subscription to EU monitoring tools is considerable. For the same amount of money or less an organisation can hire a part-time EU Public Affairs analist, who can get the same information from the available public sources for free, combine them with information from non-public sources, process them in tailor-made monitoring reports AND do interpretation and analysis.

6. Over-reliance on the tool by staff

If "all" the relevant information is (perceived to be) gathered automatically by the tool, EU public affairs staff can have the tendency to trust the tool too much ("let's sit back and relax, we got the monitoring covered") and fail to do additional research, read, analyse and add information. This way important information is not included in your file.

Tips & recommendations

• Begin with drafting your own EU monitoring strategy (as part of your EU Public Affairs plan), defining the policy areas that affect your organisation, relevants DG's and committees etc.
• Decide if you need a commercial EU monitoring tool or not (with not being the default option). I would generally advice that if your interest is very specific (e.g. one or two policy areas) and have limited resources, you can probably spent your money in a better way. If you do use an EU monitoring tool, make sure you know how it works (read the manual plus ask for an explanation by the monitoring company you have chosen).
• Have a look at publicly available EU monitoring tools. The EU does a pretty good job with providing monitoring tools free-of-charge. The most important ones being the European Parliament legislative observatory (OEIL), the Legislative Train Schedule and EUR-Lex (procedures). A lot of information is out there, free of charge, available and already structured.
• Always customize to your own needs. Do not rely on general summaries of proposals and impact assessments. Always read the full proposal and make your own summary (or add your notes to the general summary), make your own stakeholder map and verify the exact state-of-play.
• Make sure you have specialized staff that is capable of analyzing and interpreting EU legislative information and let them manage the tool and internal communication (if a tool is used). Their skillset should at least comprise extensive knowledge and experience with EU decision-making processes, EU law and EU monitoring methodology as well as strong analytical and communication skills.

Conclusion

Commerical EU monitoring tools have certainly earned their place in the realm of digital EU public affairs, organising information in a structured and insightful way. Therefore, their use should be considered as an option in managing and tracking upcoming EU legislation.

However, they do not offer a complete "sit back and relax" monitoring solution and are not fail and fool-proof. They are no guarantee that you don't miss anything anymore. Moreover, you will still need to search for additional information, customize and interpret.

Taking this into account, together with the availability of all the free online EU information sources out there, you might be better (and cheaper) off by doing it yourself and setting up your own EU information management system or methodology, which is not that difficult to do (I set it up for my organisation & others with an overview dashboard and customized monitoring reports).

In any case, the decision should be made by making a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis, comparing the options & costs offered by the EU monitoring tools providers against the (staff) costs and expertise needed of doing it yourself. Above article may help with that.