The European institutions are increasing the transparency of their decision-making as a much needed move to shield from the rising euro-criticism that is being propagated among EU's electoral base. The latest of these actions has been the obligation of the full publication of the policy-related engagements by the Members of the European Parliament. This provides new opportunities of using our advanced data analytics methods to understand the big picture and communicate towards the EU professionals and the public at large the dynamics of how the EU institutions shape their policies in cooperation with the socio-economic partners. 

Understanding and correctly communicating the policy-making process becomes crucial in the light of tectonic socio-political developments around the world which put additional pressure on the accountability of the act of governance. As highlighted by our dedicated reports, the political instability (and hence policy unpredictability) in democracies is increasing, therefore sustained efforts are needed to cope with these effects. Moreover, this year the EU institutions are working on crucial pieces of legislation, while at the same time the discussions for the new Multiannual Financial Framework will soon emerge. These will be scrutinised and be the subject of (likely polarised) political debates across the EU. 

In the first edition of this new type of report that EUmatrix will provide regularly, we analysed over 27.000 engagements / meetings that took place (and were declared) between MEPs and socio-economic stakeholders (that represent the providers of jobs, taxes, products, services and social support) in the first 9 months of the current EP term (July- mid April 2024). We show the trends and the strength of engagement efforts per each policy sector. 

*The information is extracted from the MEPs’ transparency pages, reason for which we will refer to held / declared meetings. 

*In this report we will also interchangeably use the formally-declared term “meetings” with the more result-oriented terms “engagements” and "consultations", to highlight the importance of public-private partnerships in shaping policy-making. 

This research is structured as follows: 

1. Which policy areas were the most addressed?

2. Which national groups of MEPs are holding / declaring the most engagements?

3. Which political factions are holding / declaring the most policy engagements with socio-economic partners?

4. Most policy-engaging MEPs

5. Most engaging socio-economic stakeholders

Broader findings:

1. Which policy areas were the most addressed?

Out of about 27 000 total (declared) meetings, over 6 000 meetings concerned the debate on environmental topics (including transport and energy), whereas over 4000 meetings were related to industry and innovation, in line with the expected legislative focus of the new European Commission (which has recently published its flagship Clean Industrial Deal). Notably, environmental topics remain a prominent feature of socio-economic stakeholders’ engagement with MEPs, followed by energy, digital, health, agri-food, transport and economy. 

Despite the surge in the importance of defense and migration policies, during the first 9 months of this EP term we observe a rather low number of engagements addressing these subjects. This is likely due to the more limited number of socio-economic stakeholders active in these fields at this point of time. However, we expect this to change later in the term.  

2. Which national groups of MEPs are holding / declaring the most meetings?

The figures of the MEP meetings by country indicate that either some of the national groups tend to engage to a lesser extent with socio-economic stakeholders, or their MEPs tend to under-report their meetings (or a combination of both). For example, it is striking that Finnish MEPs are reporting more meetings overall compared to Polish MEPs, since there are only 15 Finnish MEPs in the European Parliament, compared with 53 Polish MEPs. 

The strong engagement campaigns by the Finns become even more evident when we analyse the data proportionally to the size of the delegation: the Finnish MEPs reported the most meetings proportionally, with an average of 121 meetings per MEP, followed by Irish, Luxembourgish and Danish MEPs. At the other end, the data made available by the MEPs points to lower levels of engagements among some of the Eastern and Southern countries, with Baltics, Polish, Greek and Cypriot MEPs publishing the fewest engagements. 

3. Which political factions are holding / declaring the most policy engagements with socio-economic partners?

MEPs from specific political groups tend to hold / publish more meetings than others. As expected, the MEPs from the two largest groups, EPP and S&D, held the most meetings in absolute terms. 

However, when we look at the average per MEPs, the Renew group emerges as the one engaging the most with socio-economic stakeholders. Renew MEPs declared, on average, over 65 meetings per MEP, followed by the center-left groups. At the opposite end, MEPs from right-wing nationalist groups reported a much smaller number of policy meetings, below 30 per MEP. This could be due to either socio-economic stakeholders’ reluctance to engage with them or to a lower reporting rate—or, more likely, a combination of both reasons. 

A more detailed look into the data has shown us that ESN MEPs primarily declare meetings with representatives of foreign countries and right-wing political entities, while Patriots MEPs report a more diverse range of meetings with companies, trade associations, and a few NGOs.

Which political factions engage in consultations in which specific policy areas?

MEPs engage in different policy areas also depending on their political affiliation. As expected, MEPs from the Greens/EFA group tend to hold more meetings on environmental policy than other political groups (on average).

At the same time, the EPP and Renew MEPs focus more on industry & competitiveness, as shown in the charts below.

This pattern reflects primarily the tendency of MEPs to engage with socio-economic stakeholders on issues that align with the interests of their voters and supporters. However, the self-classification of the subject of the meeting depends on the angle of approaching the same matter. For instance, a meeting on clean industrial technologies tends to be framed as a competitiveness or industrial policy issue by centre-right MEPs, while centre-left and Green MEPs tend to categorize it as an environmental or sustainability matter. The way the MEPs phrase the subject of the meeting is in itself an indicator of how the stakeholders should approach them to stir more openness to their views. 

For more tailored statistics on meeting patterns related to specific MEPs or stakeholders, feel free to contact us at [email protected]. 

4. Most policy-engaging MEPs

We also assessed which individual MEPs engaged with socio-economic stakeholders on a wide range of policy areas. Engaging with a wider range of socio-economic stakeholders with a significant contribution to the European economy and society is an indication of the validation of an MEP as a representative policy-maker.

NB: The information of MEPs’ consultations with stakeholders will be included as an indicator in our more comprehensive MEPs Influence Index (to be published this summer). 

Methodology 

We defined an indicator called “Consultation strength of the MEPs”, which takes into account not only the number of meetings as such, but also how representative and active / invested that socio-economic stakeholder is in contributing to EU policy-making. For the time being, to determine how active / invested a stakeholder has been, we used as a proxy indicator the size of their accredited PA team: while understandably not perfect, this information is nevertheless a strong indicator of the share of the stakeholder's own engagement in EU policy making, but also of how much the EU policy impacts on its activity. 

We classified each meeting between an MEP and a socio-economic stakeholder according to a specific policy category (agri-food, energy, defence, etc,) which allows the creation of sector-specific assessments. 

Virtual example: MEP Polato met with three different socio-economic stakeholders on Agri-food issues. The total declared size of their PA teams is 6. Therefore, MEP Polato's Consultation Strength on Agri-food is 6.

Who are the most engaging MEPs? 

Below we provide our findings per each policy area. 

*You need to click on the black arrow to the top left to navigate across the policy areas. 

So far, MEPs who rank highest in socio-economic stakeholder engagement often hold formal leadership roles such as committee chairs, vice-chairs, or coordinators. However, this is not always the case—particularly in sectors where influence is shaped by prior expertise or political standing.

In agri-food, for example, the most active MEP is Valérie Hayer, the political leader of Renew Europe. While she holds no formal position within the AGRI or ENVI committees, her high level of engagement on agri-food highlights the current political saliency of the topic. Other highly engaged MEPs—Eric Sargiacomo (France, Renew, Vice-Chair), Norbert Lins (Germany, EPP, Vice-Chair), and Veronika Vrecionová (Czech Republic, ECR, Chair)—all hold formal roles within the AGRI committee, reinforcing the link between institutional influence and engagement with socio-economic stakeholders.

Several of these top-ranking MEPs are likely contenders for rapporteur positions on the recently announced Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Simplification Package, which forms part of the broader deregulation efforts led by the Commission. On the EUmatrix.eu platform, you can anticipate MEPs’ likely positions on this file.  

A similar pattern is visible in defence and security policy, where the MEPs with the most stakeholder engagements—Nicolás Pascual De La Parte (Spain, EPP, Coordinator in SEDE) and Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (Germany, Renew, Chair of SEDE)—also hold leadership roles within their groups or in the committee. An important upcoming file for the SEDE committee is the Omnibus planned on defence (17 June 2025), which aims to streamline requirements in defence procurement.  

In contrast, in the environment and energy sector, the most engaged MEP is Bruno Tobback (Belgium, S&D), despite holding no formal leadership role. This suggests that stakeholder engagement in this sector is also driven by past leadership on legislative files, subject-matter expertise, or internal influence within political groups.

Tobback is a first-term MEP, demonstrating that newcomers can also attract significant engagement. In his case, visibility likely stems from strong party connections and prior ministerial experience—he previously served as Belgium’s Minister for the Environment and Pensions.

Newcomers may also receive more outreach from socio-economic stakeholders because they are perceived as more open to external input, having not yet formed fixed positions on EU policies.

The engagement is expected to intensify, as energy and environment remain major themes on the Commission’s agenda. Upcoming initiatives will be highly significant for the sector, including the European Water Resilience Strategy (4 June 2025), a Chemicals Industry Package (Q4 2025), and two omnibus proposals—one on environment, targeting burdens in waste and emissions rules, and another on energy, aimed at simplifying renewables approvals procedures.  

However, it is industrial competitiveness which emerges as the defining theme of the 2025 legislative agenda. Here, engagement is concentrated among MEPs from the ITRE and ENVI committees, confirming their central role in shaping the EU’s clean industrial strategy. Notably, the five most active MEPs on this topic are German, reflecting expectations within the public affairs (PA) community that German lawmakers will play a prominent role in shaping the internal market and industrial policy agenda.

Many of the initiatives already published have focused on deregulation, but the priority is expected to shift towards funding and market incentives. Important upcoming proposals include a Clean Industrial State Aid Framework (by June) and an Industrial Decarbonisation Accelerator Act (Q4). These will test the political appetite for relaxing state aid rules, introducing green procurement criteria, and promoting EU-made low-carbon goods. 

The most influential MEPs from ITRE and ENVI are expected to compete for lead roles on these files. If you are interested in anticipating MEPs’ positions on the Industrial Decarbonisation Accelerator Act, contact EUmatrix or, if you already have a premium account, click here. 

The full data for all MEPs is available on our website here (*requires a premium account for the specific policy areas).

5. Most engaging socio-economic stakeholders

We also assessed the strength of each socio-economic stakeholder’s engagement with MEPs on different policy areas. Actively engaging with MEPs is a validation of a stakeholder's contribution to the EU's economy and society (by providing jobs, tax revenues, products, services or social support), but also of its Brussels-based PA's team expertise and professionalism in supporting EU policy-making. 

To measure a stakeholder's policy engagement, we defined an indicator called "campaign strength", which takes into account not only the number of engagement / meetings as such, but also other indicators such as: the relevance / influence of the respective MEPs on the specific topic, the diversification of engagements across MEPs and across political groups (i.e. engagements with a wider range of MEPs and groups gain more weight) - you can check the detailed methodology at the end of this report. 

Which socio-economic stakeholders had the strongest engagement campaign so far?

Click on the black arrow to the top left navigate through the different policy areas. 

There is significant variation in the top stakeholders across different policy areas. For instance, in the agri-food sector, trade organisations tend to lead the policy engagement, explicable by the fact in this sector the production (and therefore bargaining power) is rather fragmented: many agri-food producers are relatively small and therefore rely heavily on European umbrella organisations to represent their interests. The leading engagers with the MEPs are Copa-Cogeca (European Farmers), IFOAM, and CropLife, among others.

In contrast, the policy engagements in more concentrated sectors, such as digital, are led primarily by individual service providers: Meta, Google, Apple, TikTok and Vodafone. However, umbrella groups such as Digital Europe also play a prominent role. 

In other sectors we see a combined landscape. In health policy, a wide range of associations are engaged: EFPIA, Affordable Medicines Europe, MedTech Europe, Medicines for Europe and EUCOPE. At individual level, the most engaged by the MEPs health services providers have so far been been Novartis, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, AstraZeneca, etc. A similar pattern is visible in industrial policy discussions, where the engagement of associations like EuroCommerce, Eurometaux, Eurofer and CEFIC is complemented by individual engagement of leading products and services providers like BASF, Amazon, ArcelorMittal. 

Complementarily, NGOs are also heavily engaged across many policy areas. They are the leading engaging stakeholders in shaping policy from the angles such as:

- Development (e.g., Caritas Europa, IFRD)

- Family and inclusion (e.g., Eurochild, ILGA-Europe, Save the Children)

- Justice and citizenship (e.g., Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch)

At the same time, NGOs are also strongly engaged in traditionally more technical areas. For example:

- In environment, energy, and transport, organisations such as European Environmental Bureau (EEB), Climate Action Network (CAN), WWF, and Transport & Environment are key actors.

- In finance, groups like Finance Watch and Positive Money feature prominently.

It’s also insightful to look at the interplay between EU-level organisations and national groups. 

In some policy areas, European federations clearly take the lead, but national organisations also remain highly engaged. For instance, in agri-food national groups such as MTK (Finland), LRF (Sweden), DBV (Germany), along with prominent Italian and Irish organisations play an important role. Similarly, national associations of financial services providers like Finance Finland and Finance Denmark, among many others, are notable policy contributors. In the field of employment, while the ETUC (European Trade Union Confederation) stands out as the dominant EU-level umbrella, a wide range of national trade unions and employer organisations are also very engaged.

Another layer of participation comes from chambers of commerce and diplomatic missions, particularly in international trade. Here, AmChamEU plays a key role in trying to bridge transatlantic trade divides, while the engagement with both the U.S. and Chinese diplomatic missions mirrors the increasing geopolitical considerations when making trade policy. 

Interested in more analysis ? We provide detailed and tailored reports to our premium subscribers. If you are interested in a trial of our premium services, feel free to contact us at [email protected]. 

Furthermore, on our www.eumatrix.eu platform we provide full historic database of MEPs', Governments' and Commissioners' statements and actions (e.g. votes, amendments, meetings, parliamentary questions and Commission's answers) in searchable and exportable format, as well as analysed policy documents, forecasts of electoral and the socio-political trends across the EU, media and social media monitoring and more. 

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Methodology 

We first classified each meeting between an MEP and a stakeholder according to a policy category. In addition to the quantity of the meetings as such, we also assess the extent to which stakeholders are optimising their advocacy resources. Therefore, we also factored in: 

• The average (sector-specific) influence of the MEPs engaged with. The “MEP influence” indicator at its turn is calculated using an algorithm that takes into account legislative activities, leadership positions, political network, voting performance, etc. (more information here).
• MEP diversification factor: An MEP might be influential, but there are 720 of them, and even the most influential ones get outvoted, even if they are the rapporteur. It is therefore critical to reach out to a wider range of MEPs to have your views heard in the EP as a whole. This factor takes into account how many unique MEPs were engaged with, not just the number of meetings as such. 
• Political group diversification factor: in the increasingly fragmented EP not even a combination of 3 groups is enough to secure parliamentary majorities. Hence, it is critical to reach out to a broader political spectrum. We therefore factor in the extent in which the stakeholder broadened its outreach campaign, or rather concentrated it within 1 or 2 groups. 

The three factors above are multiplied by the number of meetings to provide a quantitative measurement of the campaign strength of each socio-economic stakeholder on specific policy categories.

Virtual example: the European Cancer Organisation (ECO) had 17 meetings with MEPs concerning “Health and Lifestyle” (according to the meetings declared by MEPs).

• The average influence scores of the MEPs met by ECO on "Health and Lifestyle” is 23 (on a scale from 0 to 100). 
• ECO had 17 meetings with 17 different MEPs, therefore their MEP diversification factor is 100 (the maximum value).
• ECO met with MEPs from 5 different groups, therefore their group diversification factor is 80 (out of a total of 100 that is reached if at least 6 political groups were engaged)

The Campaign strength of ECO on “Health and Lifestyle” is therefore calculated as follows: 

Number of meetings * [average: A) Average MEP Influence, B) MEP diversification factor C) Group diversification factor] → 

17 * [average(23.01; 100; 80)] → 

17 * 67.67 → 

1150 → this is ECO “Campaign strength” score on “Health and Lifestyle”