How Swiss Companies Lobby In Brussels And At The WEF

(MENAFN- Swissinfo) New analysis highlights the importance of the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos as a key site for lobbying and advocacy work carried out with top European Union officials. Davos is the second-most popular place for lobbyists after Brussels, ahead of Paris and Berlin.

• Deutsch de So lobbyieren Schweizer Firmen in Brüssel – und am WEF Original Read more: So lobbyieren Schweizer Firmen in Brüssel – und am WE

On January 21, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gave a key speech the day after United States President Donald Trump's inauguration. The stage she had chosen was the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos. The WEF is an annual fixture in the Commission president's diary.

But she is not the only top EU official to make the journey to Davos every year. Most of these participants do not make grand speeches, but meet with lobbyists.

Analysis of the EU Transparency RegisterExternal link reveals that, after Brussels, EU Commission officials' second-most popular place to meet lobbyists is Davos.

Between 2020-2024, the period of the first von der Leyen tenure, commissioners and their staff met lobbyists more often in Davos than in Paris or Berlin.

It has been possible to compile such information since 2014, when the European Commission started to publicly register all official meetings on its website. Advocacy meetings include exchanges with companies, associations, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), think tanks and other private actors. Meetings with diplomats and members of government or parliament are not included.

In any event, commissioners are only allowed to meet stakeholders who have registered in the EU Transparency Register.

Meetings with commissioners and their teams are just one form of lobby representation in the EU. Many companies try to exert influence via their national governments or get involved in their industry associations.

Companies also can participate in Commission expert groups and take part in consultations.

Alhough Davos is the most important lobbying centre for the European Commission outside Brussels, the Swiss mountain resort pales in comparison to Brussels. Lobbying is omnipresent in the Belgian capital and is not particularly transparent.

Nevertheless, the public data on meetings with the European Commission sheds an interesting light on who has the loudest voice in Brussels.

In all, 46% of all meetings with the von der Leyen Commission took place in Brussels and 48% of meetings were held virtually. Davos and the rest of the world only account for the remaining 6% of meetings with the Commission.

Swiss players are also active in Brussels. An evaluation of the transparency register shows that organisations with headquarters in Switzerland ranked eighth in terms of the most individual meetings with the von der Leyen Commission.

>>Belgium (4,375 individual meetings), which is the headquarters of most European organisations, has been omitted from the chart below for the sake of readability.

This looks very favourable for Switzerland. Stakeholders from the small Alpine state had twice as many individual meetings with the Commission's political leadership as their counterparts from Austria.

Yet this is not necessarily a success for Swiss corporate lobbying. Once again, here the WEF plays a leading role.

In a ranking of stakeholders who met most often with commissioners and/or their cabinet members, the WEF ranks eighth overall. There were 70 individual meetings between representatives of the organisation and the Commission's top management.

A look at the EU Transparency Register also shows the main topics discussed at these meetings were the Covid-19 pandemic response, climate policy and the skills agenda.

This makes the WEF the Swiss organisation with the most Commission meetings.

Apart from the WEF, it is other Geneva-based international organisations that are heavily involved in lobbying in Brussels. Such meetings are not directly about Swiss interests, are and only to a limited extent about corporate interests.

According to the analysis, the Swiss company with the strongest lobbying power in Brussels is Dow Europe GmbH, the European branch of the US chemicals group Dow. The multinationals eBay, Corteva, Indigo and Chemours also have US headquarters with Swiss offices that act as subsidiaries.

Companies that have a strong reputation as being Swiss (for example, because they are employers with numerous staff in Switzerland) did not necessarily have much lobbying activity in Brussels.

There are two big exceptions: the figures for the food giant Nestlé and UBS bank are de facto higher than the analysis shows. In addition to their ten individual meetings, Nestlé representatives were also present at 15 meetings with the European Commission.

UBS also pursues its interests in Brussels with the help of the Swiss Finance Council, which held six meetings with the first von der Leyen-led Commission. Originally, the Swiss Finance Council represented the interests of UBS and Crédit Suisse. In the meantime, UBS has taken over Credit Suisse.

It remains to be seen how this trend will develop in the future. From the Jean-Claude Juncker Commission to the von der Leyen Commission, there was a 19% reduction in the number of meetings between the European Commission and lobby representatives, according to an analysis by the publisher Table. In addition, NGOs have grown in importance compared to company representatives.

Under her new mandate (2024-2029), von der Leyen is focussing on“competitiveness”. She wants to make the EU more attractive again for companies, reduce bureaucratic hurdles and integrate the internal market more closely. It is quite possible that this will also lead to more intensive contact with company representatives.

Whether Swiss companies will see an additional need to get involved in Brussels will in turn depend on the success or failure of the recently negotiated third package of bilateral agreements, the so-called Bilaterals III. The dynamic adoption of legislation in the market access agreements should also make it more interesting for Swiss companies to become involved in Brussels.

One thing is certain: the WEF annual meeting in Davos will remain an important fixture for the European Commission. At this year's event, 10 out of 27 commissioners made the journey to Davos.

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