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Sample applications
Diane's cocktail party...
Diane is personal assistant to the Secretary General of a modest EU business association with a staff of four. An important legislative programme is set to impact the member companies. Part of her boss's brief is to promote good relations with the European Parliament, something which is doubly important with the legislative initiatives coming up as they will all be co-decision dossiers giving MEPs equal say with the Council of Ministers. The Secretary General has just asked Diane to to organise a cocktail reception for some of the new MEPs to be held in October. She calls her friend in a well-known Brussels hotel nearby the Parliament's Espace Leopold complex in Brussels. Luckily the space they need is free on their preferred evening. The boss wants to invite MEPs from the two committees that his associaton views as key for their interests - the internal market committee and the legal affairs committee. No panic for Diane because she has just received her copy of e-Contacts EP. With this product installed in her MS Outlook, Diane is able to select both the full and substitute members of both committees and use the data to create a personalised letter to each one, inviting them to the reception. Once the letters have been printed off onto the association's letterhead, she also uses e-Contacts EP to generate labels for the envelopes. By the end of the day everything is in hand but it would have taken her much, much longer if it wasn't for the convenient data on e-Contacts EP.
John's trip to Strasbourg...
John is an experienced lobbyist working for a well-known Brussels consulting firm. He frequently makes trips to Strasbourg to call on MEPs with clients for issue briefing meetings. As a lobbyist in the Parliament's complex there he often feels like a nomad with nowhere to go between meetings other than the Swan or Flower Bars. Unlike the journalists who have a whole press centre with all facilities available the lobbyist has no home base. The days can be long humping around your briefcase and laptop. So the last thing you want to do is be loaded down with heavy directories. Before his trip, John has used his copy of e-Contacts EP to prepare a checklist of all the MEPs he has to meet over the two days with their office telephone numbers, their assistant's numbers, and, most important of all, their room number. No need to carry around the "Annuaire des Deputés", he has it all on a one-pager.
Maria's position paper…
Maria is the communications officer at a major industry confederation in Brussels. The industry also faces a major legislative initiative from the Commission announced in a White Paper programme two years ago and proposed in the Springtime. After a couple of months of internal negotiating, the confederation finally has a position paper supported by all member associations and the companies who are now direct members of the club. The position has been translated into French, German, Italian and Spanish and now needs to be sent to all the MEPs on the Parliament's Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety which has already named a rapporteur who has started work considering the proposal. Keeping track of who is a member of the Committee is a nuisance but with e-Contacts EP Maria has the up-to-date listing at her finger tips. She chooses to send different language versions to different groups of MEPs according to nationality. This is easy with e-Contacts EP because she can select all the Italians in the Committee and send them the Italian version of the position paper, likewise with the Germans and the Spanish. In the end she decides to send the French text to the French, French-speaking Belgian and Luxembourg MEPs. All the others get the English version. This complex set of emails are prepared and sent out in a couple of hours.
Frieda's appeal to some Dutch and German members of Women's Rights Committee...
Frieda works for an NGO working in the field of woman's rights. The Women's Rights and Gender Equality Committee is working on an issue near and dear to her organisation. The Committee is reviewing a proposal and earlier in the month she used her copy of e-Contacts EP to send an email to all the members of the Committee attaching a copy of her NGO's position on the proposal under consideration. Next week the committee will vote but things don't look good as the German and Dutch members of the European People's Party are opposing some of the key objectives that Frieda has been working for over the past 18 months. Her board mandates her to make a direct appeal to the MEPs in question. Frieda quickly prepares a two paragraph message in German and asks her colleague to translate it into Dutch. With the help of e-Contacts EP, she then prepares a group e-mail to the German members of the EPP in the Women's Committee and sends it off. Then she prints out the telephone list for the same MEPs ready for a telephone blitz the following morning. Meanwhile her colleague has the Dutch text. In a flash Frieda has selected the Dutch MEPs and delivered the e-mail. She prints off the telephone list for the Dutch MEPs so that her colleague can follow up with them too. No time lost researching the contact details.
François' fax-letter to the Socialist Group...
François is head of public affairs for a major European multi-national company. For the past three years François and his team have been working on a campaign to obtain safe passage through Parliament of a proposal for a Directive which goes right to the core of his company's business. It has been a tough campaign. Most MEPs seem to understand the multi-billion euro implications of the legislation and the need to get it right. But the Socialists are still hesitating on whether to accept the key provisions on account of the intense political pressure they have been subjected to in the press in the run up to the plenary vote. On the flight to Strasbourg on Monday, François sees that his CEO has been misquoted in the press; the whole vote could now turn on the interpretation MEPs give to his boss' words. He must communicate now with the Socialists to correct the misunderstanding and again explain in simple terms the company's position before the vote on Wednesday. The most immediate way to do this will probably be by a fax that will arrive straight on the MEPs desks. As soon as he arrives at Entzheim, François calls the Brussels office and issues instructions to the team. Luckily, he has taken a multi-user license for e-Contacts EP and all three of his team have access to the data on the server. They split the task between them each taking charge of sending the fax to 6 or 8 nationalities in the Socialist group. With the help of e-Contacts EP a brief e-mail followed by a fax is on its way to every Socialist MEP within the hour. Because there are 198 MEPs it will take a while for all the faxes to go through but by Tuesday morning all of the targeted MEPs will have the company's true position on their desks. Meanwhile, François is on the phone to the key opinion leaders in the Socialist Group setting the record straight and urging them once again to support the legislation.Return to top of page
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Do you need to contact individuals or groups of MEPs? How much time would you normally spend researching contact details for a group of MEPs to send mailings, faxes or e-mails? |
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