Since May 2004 and the EU's enlargement to 25 member states, European associations have had to cope with increasing demands due to added numbers. But the budgets remain tight while the tasks keep piling up, showed EurActiv's annual survey of European federations.
"Enlargement has increased the number of full members and therefore increased the workload," said one respondent of a European Business federation, who added that the new countries actually needed "more support in their national lobbying activities".
Alfons Westgeest, managing partner at Kellen Europe, said: "Associations nowadays are faced with growing pressure but restrained budgets. While membership growth may improve resources available, an association must remain focused, in order to serve its core constituency."
But the survey found that only one third of associations actually perform some sort of benchmarking to measure their effectiveness. A mere 24% of respondents said that they took the trouble to measure how much money they helped their industry save.
Cost savings are an important factor for corporate members, Westgeest points out. "Many companies do look at expenses, including membership in federations, issue groups, national associations and the like."
As one might expect, 61.8% of associations report having a specific budget line for communications. What is more revealing is that a similar proportion (60%), devote targeted expenses for their internet/intranet infrastructure, superseding all other communication channels.
Last year's survey highlighted the growing importance of online communications for federations (EurActiv, 15 Nov. 2004).
