Posted on

OSSI Follow-up, Seed Movement in General

In the past few weeks I’ve had some more thoughts about OSSI.  What I wrote about OSSI before was pretty stark, and I want to offer some ideas for the way forward for everyone.  No one has to read this blog, and no one has to do what it says.  I’m just trying to lay out the situation as I see it, so please do what you want with the information.

CBD and ITPGRFA

These two treaties, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) are causing a lot of problems now, especially as provisions of the CBD and associated Nagoya Protocol are coming into force.  The inherent greed of these treaties are causing problems for almost everyone.  If you’re in the US you’re in a special situation because the US is not a party of the CBD and Nagoya Protocol, meaning your seeds are very sought after.

The problems with the US Seed Savers Exchange were in part because the US was not a party to the ITPGRFA (the US is now a party to this treaty).  The ITPGRFA basically allows seeds to be stolen without the owners permission.  Because the US wasn’t a party to this treaty, it wasn’t as simple as just becoming an SSE member and requesting all the seeds, they either needed the permission of all the individual members or they needed permission of the management.  Kent Whealy refused to give this permission, so he was pushed out of the way.  He didn’t fully understand what was happening at the time, but was trying to explain it the best he could.

The CBD establishes rights of ownership over seeds.  It is the privatization of biodiversity.  If you live outside the US and buy a package of seeds you only have the right to plant and grow those seeds, not the right to save seeds or use the plants in breeding projects.  The situation is very different if someone who owns the seeds ‘gives’ them to you.  For this reason it’s now almost a requirement to transfer seeds with a contract, either attached to the package of seeds or buried in the terms and conditions of sale.

Exclusive ‘ownership’ of seeds is a valuable commodity, also in the US.

I’m not a lawyer, and the contents of these treaties are very complicated.  The largest private collections of seeds are owned by Kokopelli and Arche Noah in Europe, and they have lawyers busy working out all the consequences of the treaties on their collections.  I would guess over time these organizations and others will come up with some solutions.  In addition, I’m sure there will be court cases and other reinterpretations of the treaties, and the situation will change.  There is certainly a big fight ahead of us.

What Can you Do?

I hope very much these treaties will fail, and I believe they will eventually.  The issue is more how to manage the fallout and damage and, in the meantime, continue to work on saving biodiversity.

The cohesion of organizations supporting seed saving efforts is critical, and in many ways it’s hard to imagine the absence of this, but I think these days are gone.  Every organization of more than a few people will just be target for infiltration.  Every collection of seeds will be impossible to protect without the efforts of a dedicated lawyer.  I think it’s important to go back to the days of seed lists informally traded between friends, and in the US possibly seed companies offering their seeds over the Internet.  We probably have to explore the need for seed companies to have terms and conditions for their seeds, I don’t have a good answer for this now.

Written contracts, terms of use, SMTAs and pledges are all extremely important.  It’s very important you not sign anything, or otherwise accept any restrictions on any seeds you receive or give.  The OSSI seed pledge seemed innocent enough at the beginning, but turned out to be a problem.  It’s very important you don’t offer your seeds in any sort of exclusive manner.  If seeds do have restrictions or contracts, it’s important to keep track of these.  If there are future court cases, it’s important to know exactly how seeds have changed hands and what terms and conditions apply.  DNA analysis can easily establish pedigree, and can be compared to other seeds.  You aren’t doing anyone any favors for example by just ignoring the fact that seeds are OSSI or if you signed an SMTA, because this can be established with a DNA test.

Outside of the US, not keeping track of these contracts or the ownership of seeds is punishable on the level of the War on Drugs.  The CBD simply says the level of punishment should be sufficient to ensure compliance, limited only by your national constitution.  You have to wonder if their intention was to promote biodiversity or make profits.

Don’t willingly submit your seeds for DNA testing.  The fact is they will do this anyway, and there’s not much you can do.  I know of several examples in Europe where seeds are stolen for DNA analysis.  This usually results in the people or organizations involved paying the same price the Seed Savers Exchange did.

Avoid the resources of genebanks, and don’t pay more for biodiversity.  Already problems are occurring because people are not accepting SMTAs, and royalties are not being paid for the use of seeds.  Even requesting genebank resources as an individual contributes to this, because they are counting on you to use their seeds and pass them on to others without the knowledge that an SMTA was signed.  If not enough royalties are paid, the CBD and Svalbard will collapse.

Keep any seeds you have, and keep doing what you’re doing.  Being able to fight what’s going on depends on the information about seeds, and what sort of contracts have been signed, not the seeds themselves.  There are no bad seeds!  Hopefully we can fight these changes, and fully legalize all seeds again.  The best tactic for now is non-cooperation with authorities.

Be wary of Sociologists and Social Scientists.  Of course there are all kinds of people and not all of them are bad, but be particularly concerned if they ask you to give them all of your seeds.  There has been a lot of research in the last few decades concerning farmers and seed savers, and they know exactly how you think and what you expect.

Some Conclusions

If you gave your seeds to OSSI and they have been registered and DNA sequenced, they have been stolen.  You can possibly rectify the situation a bit by doing another final selection if you have some earlier generations.  If there is not an exact DNA match, you can release a new version of your variety to replace the old one.  In any case we should accept the situation and move on.

Certified Organic is not going to be a solution to global warming, and it’s not going to be the small, community or family farmer regenerative agriculture we need.  If your income or livelihood depends on certification, great go ahead, but you aren’t doing anyone any favors by otherwise promoting or participating with it.  Organizations like the Organic Seed Alliance and LIVESEED have some great people, but many of the fundamental principles behind them are flawed.  Work with the people, not the organizations.

At it’s peak Europe had about 50 seed saving organizations.  There are a couple of bad apples, but in general these all have great and dedicated people.  Kokopelli and Arche Noah are the largest, and both deserve your support.  If you live in the US, you can really help out by sharing your seeds with them on a non-exclusive basis, both the organizations and members.  Be sure to communicate with them any SMTAs, contracts or terms and conditions you are aware of.

I would be happy to facilitate a European organization that allowed seed savers in the US to try to market their seeds in Europe on an exclusive basis.  Along the lines of what OSSI was planning to do, but instead of being owned and controlled by the seed industry, and based on lies and fake news, one that was controlled and worked for the seed savers themselves, based on honesty and voluntary contributions.  If anyone is interested, get in touch.  In the meantime, you could look at Kokopelli and Arche Noah, and consider anything they might organize.  Anything like this is going to be problematic to say the least, but I would be happy to give advice and my opinions on it.

Posted on

EU Organic Regulation a Ridiculous Farce

Due to come into force Jan 2021, and replace the existing organic legislation, if anything the new EU Organic Regulation is a step backwards.  Together with the CBD, the red tape will be too much except for large or established businesses.

A meeting took place in the EU Parliament on 16 October 2018 that confirms this.  Other than watching this meeting over the Internet, I haven’t been following this legislation, so I may be missing some details.

The EU already has seed legislation that dates back to WWII.  Many other countries, like the US, Australia and New Zealand don’t have any comparable legislation.   In these places, seeds are only regulated according to rules on packaging and phytosanitary issues.  The EU has a well established seed industry, that seeks to keep it’s dominance and destroy competition.  It’s become well known for the loss of biodiversity that’s taken place since WWII, as agriculture has been transitioned to large monocultures.

The rules for organic food, for legal reasons, needed to be updated and some seed people were invited to join the discussion.  A so-called ‘trialogue’ took place between the EU Commission, Parliament and Council.  In order to provide good publicity and entice some people working with biodiversity to join, some proposals were made along the lines of ‘agroecology’, farmers saving their own seeds, no more registration for organic varieties, ‘heterogeneous material’ and so on.  In the end very few meaningful positive developments remained, and most of these are subject to ‘delegated acts’, meaning they can be administratively abolished later.

While I don’t want to discourage anyone who wants to make use of these changes in the legislation to start a business or otherwise make money, I doubt many small farmers or other operators will be able to make good use of the new legislation.

I talked about this earlier, but my advice is if you are a consumer to refuse to pay more for organic varieties and give preference to non organic varieties.  I’m going to spell out a few specific drawbacks below.

This outcome is really a disaster for efforts to use agriculture as a tool to combat climate change.

Seed Saving without Seed Saving

One of the promises was farmers’ would be able to save their own on farm seeds for replanting.  Yes, seed replication will be allowed under the new legislation, but in almost all cases this will involve registered varieties in which royalties will have to be paid or contractual restrictions.  If a farmer does their own breeding or makes crosses, these have to be registered variety by variety, and non-varieties like combinations of varieties or anything without identifiable phenotypes will not be allowed.  This isn’t likely to be of a lot of benefit, because this sort of seed replication can mostly be done cheaper in other ways.

Permaculture without Permaculture

Also called non-permaculture or agroecology.  This is where we need high genetic variability for specific geographic locations or variable weather conditions possibly caused by global warming.

In this new regulation, this will have to be implemented with specific varieties.  While some varieties will have some variability, this won’t be enough variety to make full use of biodiversity.

An industry spokesperson at this meeting emphasized the legislation needed to facilitate large, high performance monocultures, so mostly we seem to be talking about non-permaculture in monocultures.

Protect Old Varieties

There was a tired old mantra repeated several times at the meeting, on how this legislation was going to protect old varieties.  It’s true, in many cases this legislation will allow old varieties to be sold straight out of a genebank or private collection, but this isn’t nearly as interesting as being able to easily bring these varieties up to date with breeding efforts, and create more biodiversity by combining them with other varieties into a mix.

Organic will have Priority over Conventional

It’s the intention that, because seeds in the new organic regulation will be cheaper and easier to register, this will provide a conduit for more varieties in conventional agriculture.  That is, once a new organic variety exists, seeds can legally be sold to a conventional farmer who could grow them at a later date.  There are still discussions taking place over if all organic seeds can legally be sold for conventional farming, and in any case there will be a delay before new varieties become available to conventional farmers.

More Varieties is not Biodiversity

There was a lot of discussion about the shortcomings of the current system with national seed lists.  Even though these lists have thousands of varieties, somehow biodiversity is going to be increased by creating lists of even more varieties.  Biodiversity involves making use of genes, and this is promoted by eliminating the administrative burden of variety registration and by increasing the variability of the seeds used.  This has nothing to do with how many seeds are on a list.

Conclusion

This is just another EU political train wreck.  After 18 trialogue sessions, and lots of work by lots of people, very little was accomplished.

Like I said above, I don’t mean to discourage anyone who wants to try anyway, but I don’t think many people are going to be motivated to work supporting biodiversity in this context.

It’s almost time for elections.  It’s time to let EU politicians know what we think.

Posted on

Convention on Biodiversity (CBD)

In short, the CBD is the privatization of biodiversity.

According to this treaty, all biodiversity is owned by someone; sometimes nations and sometimes privately.  One thing for sure, the CBD is coming, and for the moment it’s not likely anyone can stop it.

The CBD caught a lot of us in the seed movement by surprise.  It’s been underway for probably 30 or more years, and no secret, but most of us doubted it had anything to do with what we were working on.  International treaties are always hard to just read and understand, and most of them have underlying intentions that aren’t always made clear.  This treaty is no exception.

I’m no lawyer, and I’m not even writing this post with a copy of the treaty for reference, so it’s possible there are technical errors or omissions here.  The purpose of this post is just to give an over all idea of what’s going on.

Parties

All UN member nations are a party to this treaty except the United States and the Vatican.  The US is always reluctant to be legally bound by international treaties, and says it believes domestic law offers them the same protection.

This makes it one of the most universally accepted treaties in the world.  It also creates an interesting situation in the US.

A great deal of this treaty is based on written agreements between parties, and since these are generally enforcible everywhere, even people in the US are going to feel the impact of this treaty.

Global Seed Vault at Svalbard

For decades now, using the CBD sister treaty, The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA), the genetic resources for agriculture have been stolen from around the world and stored at Svalbard.  Now they are to be sold back to us using the CBD.

The costs of running a seed vault like Svalbard should not be underestimated.  Stocks need to be maintained for distribution, and periodically all genetic resources need to be regrown or they will die in storage.  As they are regrown, they need to be well isolated and kept genetically pure.  History is full of projects like Svalbard, that once started could not raise sufficient funds to keep the genetic resources alive.  In fact, there are not really many examples of successful long term genetic resource storage.

There is every reason to believe that Svalbard will eventually fail, and in fact they have recently been involved in large scale fund raising efforts.  The global system for storing our genetic resources is apparently currently in the process of failing, slowly, not catastrophically.

The global system for storing genetic resources was supposed to be funded by it’s users.  In practice that’s not happening.  Industrial users of genetic resources are supposed to return a percentage of their profits, but the rate of this happening is very low.

Users of genetic resources that employ intellectual property rights are supposed to pay back a percentage of these profits, but the system of patenting seeds is in disarray now, and it’s unlikely to be benefiting Svalbard or genetic conservation to any great extent.

The Nagoya Protocol

One of the most unworkable parts of the CBD is the Nagoya Protocol.  About half the nations who are a party to the main CBD treaty, are also a party to this protocol.

This protocol basically says for all species related to food, someone owns all the genes in all species.

Under this protocol, a seed company can continue to operate as they do now, but only if the customer buying the seeds doesn’t use them for ‘purposes of biodiversity’.  In other words, seeds cannot be saved from the resulting plants and they can’t be used in breeding projects.

Otherwise, when not just seeds are at issue, but also biodiversity, transfer of the seeds generally has to take place on the basis of a contract.  This contract can say almost anything, and writing these contracts is a big and expensive legal undertaking.  Among other things, these contracts can specify restrictions and mandate royalties.

Over time as the seeds get sold, resold, and used for breeding projects, these contracts accumulate.  Restrictions always remain and accumulate, and royalties get divided into smaller and smaller slices, and distributed to more and more people.

In fact, the administration of these contracts is so complex, it’s not really realistic for a single person to manage it themselves.  In general you have to think in terms of cooperatives or other organizations managing the business and administrative aspects.

In case you might be dismissive about the Nagoya Protocol, and just ignore all the administration, the treaty has a surprise waiting for you.  The treaty specifies the member states shall assess ‘sufficient penalties to ensure compliance’.  In other words, if you don’t do the paperwork correctly, your national government must apply increasing penalties — even incarceration, limited only by the constitutionality of those penalties — until you get it right.

The Backers

Who’s behind the CBD and ITPGRFA?

The visible parties are mostly social studies related academics.  This might sound a little strange, as many of us even with university degrees may have never have even taken a social studies class.  I’m going to go a little deeper into this in other posts, but basically these are people who’s job it is to both study past societies and design future societies.  A lot of the activity for these treaties comes out of The International Institute for Social Studies in The Hague (https://www.iss.nl/), and related people in Rome.

Behind the academics however are the wealthy and powerful families of the US and Europe, with unlimited funds — the 1%.  For example Amy Goldman of the Goldman-Sax family is a prominent figure associated with the American Seed Savers Exchange and Svalbard, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation helped fund Svalbard, the Rockefeller foundation is deeply involved in many direct and indirect ways.  There are many other wealthy families involved, also many European families.

What Can We Do?

This is a complicated question, and it depends a bit on how connected you are to biodiversity and where you live.  This is probably going to be a topic of discussion for a long time.

There are a number of holes and weaknesses in these treaties, and different countries are parties to different parts of it.  For example, people in the US may be in a position to undermine some parts of the treaty by supplying genetic material to people in other places.  Many countries are not a party to the Nagoya Protocol and might find themselves in a similar position.

If you are the holder of a major collection of biodiversity, you may be able to do something creative by licensing it’s use.  European seed saving organizations Arche Noah and Kokopelli have taken very different but clever approaches.

If you’re just a consumer, keep in mind the whole premise of these treaties is that biodiversity is precious, which it is, and something people will pay a lot of money for, which I find doubtful.  As a consumer, keep your wits about you and think about what you’re paying for.  In Europe, certified organic isn’t what it used to be, and maybe isn’t so interesting anymore.  Don’t pay unnecessarily for your food, and try to buy as directly as possible from the source.

Everyone could benefit by educating themselves on fake news, and how the wealthy classes control people.

I don’t pretend all social studies people are bad, but many are at least a little suspect.  Don’t be so quick to believe the things they say, and consider they are often the source of fake news of the wealthy classes.

Posted on

Fake News: No Patents on Seeds

Patents are a controversial topic these days.  While I don’t think many people would argue it’s a good thing for an inventor to be able to protect their invention, modern patent law has gone far beyond this.  For one thing, most ordinary people don’t have the economic resources or business connections to effectively patent, legally defend and sell their inventions.  In addition small companies are very vulnerable to the lawsuits that come from patents, and the legal costs that ensue.

With the duration of patents recently extended to 20 years, and changes in patent law that make many more patents possible then ever before, patents are increasingly becoming a tool for wealthy individuals to increase their wealth and dominance over society.

An important issue used to be the common good, and this was one of the arguments for limiting patents to 10 years.   Afterwards the patent would fall into the public domain.  This idea is increasingly being sidelined, and patent holders supported by governments have increasing power to remove unpatented products from the market or exclude them from supply chains.

Background on Seeds in Europe

It’s different in different places in the world, but in Europe patents on seeds were introduced by the biotechnology directive of 1998.  This was after several years of debating, and a failed directive 10 years earlier.  This was also in the wake of GMOs being released into the environment in North America, and Monsanto suing farmers with contaminated fields claiming they were violating their patents.  Most famously was Percy Schmeiser in Canada who won his legal battle with Monsanto.

Among the controversies in Europe was the idea that genes which exist in nature should be patentable, just by virtue of isolating them.  This would not seem to be an invention, which is what patents are supposed to be about.

Unlike North America, in Europe conventionally bred seeds were explicitly excluded from patents, or so they thought.  Also in Europe, there was so much controversy surrounding the issue, there were agreements put in place effectively locking the dossier at the European Commission, and there is now a great deal of reluctance to reopen this dossier.

Supposedly this wasn’t something the food industry wanted, but rather was forced on them by the pharmaceutical industry.  A claim like this is very hard to verify, and depends on knowing the contents of private conversations between company executives.  Did one industry force it on another, or was there collusion?  It’s certainly convenient plausible deniability.

Near Diplomatic Immunity

One of the most undemocratic things about the patent issues is the way it’s been implemented.  It was implemented after a great deal of public protest, then with a closed dossier.  Now the patents are issued by an independent institution, located in Switzerland outside of the EU, in a building that effectively has a form of diplomatic immunity.   Apparently even the police need permission to enter the building.  The reason for this legal-political construction was to prevent ‘political interference’ in the issuing of patents.

This effectively puts the issue of patents outside of both EU and Swiss laws.  The issuing of patents is at the convenience of those applying, and the institution is largely self regulating.

The Mistake

In the midst of all this political wrangling, a mistake was made.  As it turns out, patents on conventionally bred seeds were not excluded as originally intended.  There was a small mistake in the original wording of the law, and this has resulted in scores of patents being unintentionally issued.  It’s been in the news; patents on potatoes, lettuce,  broccoli, tomatoes or peppers.

Now this mistake is buried deep inside this directive, which has been been closed and locked by the EU commission, and the patents are being issued within the legal-political construction that was intended to prevent ‘political interference’.

The Winners and Losers

Anyone who breeds fruits and vegetables are certainly the biggest losers.  This creates a situation where breeding techniques and well as entire ranges of fruits and vegetables might suddenly become a priority, because their company owns the patent, or something to be avoided because a competitor owns the patent.  It means any breeders have to pay attention to all the individual genes and traits their plants might have, in order to consider what patents might exist on these.

If you’re an independent plant breeder, this really has the potential to put you out of business.  It will be very difficult to avoid all the patents controlled by the larger players.

Most countries in Europe with commercial plant breeding activities have passed local legislation setting aside patents on conventionally bred products.  This means for the time being breeding activities can continue in these countries.  The problem will come in the marketing of these fruits and vegetables in other countries where local legislation hasn’t been changed.

Are there winners?  Probably consumers are winners to some extent.  A messed up system of patents means the food companies will have a harder time using patents to their advantage.

No Patents on Seeds

Along comes the food industry, in this case primarily meaning Monsanto because they owned most of the seed companies at that point.  They start a campaign, with a lot of resemblance to campaigns run around the time of the introduction of patents on plants and seeds in Europe.  They setup a website, run a marketing campaign in The Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe, then collect many signatures on a petition for the purpose of getting rid of patents on seeds.  The name of this campaign is ‘No Patents on Seeds’.

Almost as soon as it began, but after they collected the bulk of the signatures, they announced they were going to work initially on just patents on conventionally bred plants and seeds.

In other words, they’ve turned a popular campaign for getting rid of patents on living plants and animals, and their genes, into a food industry campaign to fix the system of biotechnology patents in Europe to their advantage.

This campaign seems to have a virtually unlimited budget.  Not only are they sponsoring 30 minute TV infomercials in the Netherlands, but they have a large number of staff, in several countries, working directly and indirectly on the campaign.  It’s clear a number of organizations who put their name behind the campaign did so because they were paid.

There’s no money for a competing campaign, and for example this blog is the effort of a single person who’s own costs aren’t even paid.

I’m not aware of a single person supporting this campaign who didn’t either sign the online petition at the time it was promoting a complete end to patents on seeds, or doesn’t have a financial relationship with the organizers of the campaign.   As far as I can tell it’s completely paid for by the food industry.

The Importance of GMOs

It might be easy to dismiss GMOs as unimportant with respect to patents.  For example in Europe they are not completely prohibited, but very restricted and not common.  It might be tempting to believe an end to patents on conventionally bred plants and animals might be good enough.

In fact there are many reasons why this is not true.  With GMOs there are many gray areas.  There are a number of techniques being considered by the EU Commission now as possibly being exempt from classification as GMO.  In addition non-food items, for example bio-plastic packaging, can legally be sold in Europe as GMOs.  If these techniques and crops can be patented, there will be very strong commercial reasons why consumers can’t object to them and there may be the same environmental health consequences as GMOs in our food.

In addition, while as a consumer I insist on the right not to have GMOs forced into supply chains, and I insist on continuing to have the right to not buy GMOs if I choose, I don’t rule them out as a science.  I think in general consumers will be much more prepared to accept GMOs if they exist in the public domain and there are not strong commercial pressures behind them.  I think in the future there may be important reasons why GMOs may be used, and patents shouldn’t interfere with this any more than they should interfere with conventional breeding now.

The End of Plausible Deniability

I guess we’re all lucky one of the worlds largest pharmaceutical companies just bought the worlds largest agriculture company.  Now that the Bayer-Monsanto merger is a thing of the past, it’s a lot harder to say patents on seeds are being imposed on the food industry by the pharmaceutical industry.  Now it’s very realistic to expect the two industries to view it as a common issue.

The Real Solution

The solution is not to fix a broken system of patents on life.  The solution is for the food industry to convince us that patents on life are necessary and beneficial to the consumer, and if not then cooperate with reopening the biotechnology dossier at the EU Commission, for the purpose of ending all patents on living organisms or their genes.

If the food and pharmaceutical industries do not find this an acceptable solution, then the proper thing to do is negotiate a solution that also provides other real benefits to the common good.  In order to move forward with this, the fake news campaign has to stop.

It’s my hope this issue provokes a larger debate on patents.

Posted on

The Citizen Lobbyist

This post is part of the series EU Agriculture 2020.

The New Reality

There is a new and exciting political reality in Europe and other places.  Voters are increasingly acting in hostile ways, and with the Internet, social media, smart phones with cameras and other new technologies, it’s never been easier to hold politicians accountable.  Politicians are supposed to take into account the wishes of voters, and those that don’t are increasingly finding themselves under the spotlight.

In Europe we are in the middle of Brexit, and we’ve just had a series of elections at both EU and national levels, which have seen a new wave of extremist politicians ushered into power.  The message is clear.  If democracy isn’t reformed in Europe, it’s likely to fall apart completely.

This honeymoon won’t last for ever.  Now is the time where we have our chance.  Now is the window of opportunity.  While this post is primarily about Europe, I think something similar is happening in many parts of the world.

The Big Black Hole

The big problem with the so-called Brussels bubble now is it’s awash in special interests.  Nearly everyone lobbying there represents someone who pays their salary.  There are enormous commercial interests, and cash flow like we’ve never seen before.  Nearly no one there actually represents the interests of ordinarily people.  This isn’t a secret, and in recent years the EU has taken a number of steps to regulate lobbying, and increase transparency and openness.

The solution to this problem of special interests is not as complicated as it might seem.  The solution is really for more ordinary people to spend a little bit of time fighting for causes they believe in.  I think most people would be astonished how much of a difference they can make, and how positively their efforts will be received.

It’s the way politicians work, that they have to do what people (lobbyists) tell them to.  There’s really no other way.  If there are no ordinary people there at the right time and place, their opinion can’t be taken into account.

These days the EU is one of the most open and accessible political structures, often more so than national governments.

Who Do you Represent?

No one person on their own can generally effect significant change.  You need to discuss things with others, learn from others, form alliances and strategies, and so on.  In general you need to represent a group of people to do lobby work.  If you’re an established blogger like me, you probably have a topic and community.  Maybe you are a member of a trade union or community group.  Maybe your employer will let you represent them.  Maybe you want to start your own non profit organization.

If you really don’t have your own group, you may also try approaching other NGOs, but be aware that these are often well funded and generally represent their donors.  If you agree with them, fine, but be aware of organizations that say for example they promote environmental issues, but in reality have other goals.  These days most NGOs depend on large donors, and the days of surviving off of €25/yr membership fees, and having an open and democratic structure, are mostly gone.  On the other hand, teaming up with another NGO in the beginning can be a good way to learn the ropes.

In some way or another, you should try to represent some group and have some area of expertise.

Note the EU does not have any particular requirements that lobbyists be EU nationals or residents.  Anyone can lobby the EU.

Choosing the Right Cause(s)

If you are part of a larger group, someone else may choose the causes to fight for, but if it’s just you where do you start?

In general, pending issues are the best place to start.  If you are targeting Brussels, registering in the transparency register may be a good place to start, and there you can select a number of topics for which you receive email notifications.

Otherwise, if you want to try to push your own cause, you either need to have a lot of support behind you, or you need a cause that will make some politician look good.  For example, if you want to bring back traditional light bulbs, consider you will be going against the corporate interests of Philips, and you will be rehashing a topic that upset a lot of people the last time around.  Instead consider promoting organic food or more money for national parks.  This is more likely to get the attention of politicians.  If you want to promote your own cause, start by writing a letter to the appropriate politician and possibly following it up with a meeting.

A Matter of Ideas

Generally one of the most difficult things for politicians are getting enough good ideas.  With ideas, you can always put them side by side and choose the best.  If you don’t have any ideas however, it’s hard to know where to start.

Most politicians want to hear from you to get ideas.  Don’t be afraid to send an email or write a letter, even if it doesn’t look so professional or the ideas are not completely thought out.

Understanding the Process

The EU has three main institutions: The Commission, the Council and the Parliament.  The Commission is the executive branch, is responsible for the introduction of all legislation, and can often act on it’s own authority.  The Council is like the US Senate, and contains appointed representatives from the member states.  The Parliament is like the US House of Representatives, and it’s members are directly elected by EU citizens.  The Council and Parliament make up the legislative branch of the EU government.

Most citizen lobbyists will deal primarily with the EU Commission and Parliament, because influencing the Council generally requires working from within the individual member states.

Timing is Everything

Most politicians don’t have an attention span that goes beyond a few weeks, or a couple of months at the very most.  It’s also their nature that they make decisions at the last minute.  It’s absolutely critical that you approach them at the right time.  Generally you will hear about something pending, or if you are in the transparency register, you may get an email notification.  Figure out when a politician is going to be thinking about a particular issue, or making a decision, and contact them at that moment or just a little before.

If you contact a politician at any other time about something that doesn’t have anything to do with them, they will surely just ignore you.

Don’t Favor Political Parties

It may be tempting to side with your favorite political party, maybe you support the environment or it’s aligned with your religion or so on.  It’s better not to do this, because it’s often necessary to work with different parties.  If you align yourself with one party, then the other parties won’t pay attention to you any more.

If you’re careful to not align yourself with any one party, then generally all the parties will talk with you.

Pay Attention to the Committees

When approaching members of the Parliament, one of the most important issues is which committees they are members of, and their roles within the committee.

Committees can accept or reject legislation, and they also approve amendments.  Focusing your effort on members of the appropriate committees will often give you more influence over the legislation in the long run.

Get Your Fingers Dirty and Make Friends

If you want to make changes in the food you eat or anything else, just pick a cause and fight for it.  Don’t be afraid to fail.

Look for friends along the way, to team up with and learn how things work.

Don’t be afraid to get in touch with me if you have any questions, or if you would like to work on issues together.  I also love to hear from people who just want to tell me what they think about things.  When I do lobby work, I can’t represent my readers if they don’t tell me what they think about things.