An increasing number of U.S. companies are doing business with the European Parliament. | REUTERS U.S. groups flex muscles in Brussels

It’s accepted wisdom that Washington is broken. That’s why the hottest spot in the lobbying and advocacy world is suddenly Brussels.

Yes, Brussels.


While Congress struggles to pass a budget or pay its bills on time — let alone address copyright law, privacy standards or energy policy — activists, lobbyists and nongovernmental organizations have figured out they can get things done in the European Union instead.

When a coalition of American nonprofit groups sought new digital privacy protections, it went to the European Parliament. When opensource activists wanted to stop the merger between two American tech companies, they asked European regulators to re-examine the deal. And as Google and Microsoft have learned firsthand, European antitrust investigators can tie American companies up for years in litigation.

“A lot of Americans are just kind of unaware of the rest of the world. They think everything is decided here,” said James Love, the director of the nongovernmental advocacy group Knowledge Ecology International.

“The European Parliament is no longer a joke — it has real power,” Love said.

The American Chamber of Commerce to the E.U. — which is independent of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce but represents American business interests abroad — has nine registered lobbyists in the EU. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation's top business group, also has an office in Brussels. As of 2011 (the most recent year records are available), Google has seven lobbyists in the European capital and has spent just under $1 milion on lobbying. Facebook has three lobbyists, and has spent about a half-million dollars on lobbying. ExxonMobil has eight lobbyists, Microsoft has 17.

“Business and other players in the policy debate should not be complacent with gridlock and stasis in Washington,” said Soren Dayton, a senior vice president with Prism Public Affairs, who has worked on transatlantic business issues.

For U.S.-based groups, it’s a new version of an old advocacy trick: looking for a friendly state legislature or compliant city council as a first step toward national or international standards. Emissions standards first passed by California or a trans-fat ban introduced in New York City have been examples of this kind of venue-shopping, especially if they’re facing a hostile or deadlocked Congress.

“You can see already — specifically in the antitrust area,” said Barry Steinhardt of Friends of Privacy USA. “Europe has already forced companies like Google to take steps that American regulators have not forced on Google.”

The most recent example is the privacy bill being considered before the European Parliament — something that activists say would be impossible to pass in the United States.

“U.S. consumer groups and privacy groups, as a subset of consumer groups, are talking to our European colleagues much more than they did before,” said Ed Mierzwinski, the consumer program director at the consumer interest group U.S. PIRG.

“We’re trying to protect American consumers,” Mierzwinski added. “One way to protect American consumers is to have U.S. companies adopt strong European Union rules for the U.S. market.”

Earlier this month, Steinhardt and representatives from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Consumer Federation of America testified in favor of new privacy regulations being considered by Brussels. Those proposed regulations would give the 450 million people in the European Union the right to opt out of digital tracking and targeted advertising — and would limit the ability of big American tech companies to sell advertising data and target consumers.

It’s a development that has some American business interests worried.

A recent analysis of the proposals by the lobbying and law firm DLA Piper and obtained by POLITICO warned: “Despite the huge amount of debate and lobbying following the release of the initial version of the Regulation in January this year, many of the contentious provisions have been retained and, in some cases, strengthened.”

DLA Piper represents the National Business Coalition on E-Commerce and Privacy — a business group that includes companies like Experian, Fidelity Investments, the Investment Company Institute, Charles Schwab & Co., Deere & Company, JPMorgan Chase, General Motors, Vanguard Group, Fiserv, Bank of America and Visa.

The proposed regulations have brought on a flurry of lobbying activities in Brussels from American companies — but so far the privacy bill has not been significantly weakened or watered down.

The privacy bill is not the first time that activists from NGOs and advocacy groups have tried using the European Parliament or European regulators to force American companies into changing their ways.

Love’s group, Knowledge Ecology International, in concert with other activists, wrote a letter to the European Commission in 2009, asking them to stop the acquisition of Sun Microsystems by computer hardware company Oracle. At issue was a free piece of software called MySQL that helped power a number of popular websites and online services. The activists wanted Oracle to spin off MySQL into its own company as a condition of the merger.

The commission took the concerns seriously, and the merger was delayed. According to diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks, Obama adminstration officials and Oracle executives leaned hard on the European officials to approve the deal. It was finally approved in early 2010.

Other activists have pushed the European Union to include a copyright exemption for the blind in an intellectual property treaty — over the objections of big copyright holders like publishers. A lobbying effort directed at the European Union’s parliament and commission helped include the exemption. The United States eventually supported it.

And activists helped sink the European adoption of a worldwide Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. After outrage and protests by average Europeans in several countries, the European Parliament rejected the treaty. It had been supported by U.S. corporate interests, hoping to crackdown on intellectual property theft.

Adam Schlosser, senior manager for the U.S. Chamber’s Center for Global Regulatory Cooperation, said it makes sense to have a presence overseas.

”If you’re going to be conducting business there, and European companies conduct business in the United States, you’re going to want to have input into the process,” he said. “When it affects your company or your country or your government, you’re going to lobby on the other side as well.”

Antoine Ripoll, a longtime EU official who now heads the European Parliament’s liaison office in Washington, said all the activity is changing the Belgian capital. “I’ve been in Brussels for 25 years — and I’ve seen progressively the number of U.S. companies establishing their headquarters in Brussels,” he said. “They used to do that in London or in Paris or in Germany. Now it’s Brussels.”

CORRECTION: A previous version of this alert misstated which organization now has an office in Brussels and nine registered lobbyists in the European Union. It is the American Chamber of Commerce to the E.U. — which is independent of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce but represents American business interests abroad. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce also has an office in Brussels.

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 6:00 a.m. on February 5, 2013.

CORRECTION: Corrected by: Elizabeth Titus @ 02/06/2013 02:39 PM CORRECTION: A previous version of this alert misstated which organization now has an office in Brussels and nine registered lobbyists in the European Union. It is the American Chamber of Commerce to the E.U. — which is independent of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce but represents American business interests abroad. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce also has an office in Brussels.