Tag: Business associations

Business associations must radically reassess their role in the EU policymaking arena if they are to continue to serve their members effectively in post-crisis Europe, federation representatives were told at a conference in Brussels last week (5 May).

Businesses require "much more professionalism" and "swifter answers" from their industry associations to deal with the complexity of today’s EU institutional landscape, according to Alain Beaumont, founder of AGEP Association Management.

Business associations are facing increased competition from individual companies in influencing the EU policymaking process, industry bosses heard last week (29 April).  

Europe will regain the economic strength it enjoyed in 2007 within "three to five years," according to Jürgen Thumann, the new president of the BusinessEurope lobby group. But he told EurActiv Germany that the recovery remains "fragile".

A combination of loans for SMEs, bank rescue schemes and the implementation of the updated Late Payments Directive could help reboot Europe's ailing economy, Philippe De Buck, director-general of BusinessEurope, told EurActiv in an interview.

Finding the right balance between the Brussels and national perspectives is crucial when communicating on EU policies, while blogs and video clips are becoming an increasingly popular means of communicating online, indicates a EurActiv survey.

Europe's entrepreneurs are convinced of the merits of Turkish accession to the EU even though EU politicians and voters are not, observe Katinka Barysch and Rainer Hermann in a June 2007 essay for the Centre for European Reform (CER).

With the onward march of globalisation, companies are often faced with a bewildering range of standards to which their products must conform. A preferable option is adherence to a consistent set of standards, even if they are the most exacting. Trade associations increasingly seek to follow this trend by becoming relevant actors in global-policy definition.

The impact of enlargement has yet to be fully understood by associations, EurActiv's yearly European Association survey has revealed. Besides, most still lack clear benchmarks to measure the value they deliver.

In this paper, Prof. Justin Greenwood analyses how European trade associations differ from those - often larger ones - operating at national level, their membership structure and the challenges they face.