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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 full publication of the policy-related engagements of all EU civil servants, from Commissioners to the heads of units. 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 this 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, hence 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 this first edition of this new type of report that EUmatrix will provide regularly, we analysed over 7000 engagements / meetings that took place (and were declared) between representatives of the European Commission and socio-economic stakeholders in the first 4 months of the new European Commission (December-April 2025). We conducted this research both from the perspective of the policy-makers (Commissioners, members of the Commissioners’ cabinets and civil servants from Director-Generals to Heads of Units) and the perspective of the socio-economic partners. 

Note: starting this summer, the data for engagements with both the EP and the Commission will be regularly updated in the specialized sections of our www.eumatrix.eu website. 

*The information is extracted from the Commission’s transparency pages, reason for which we will regularly highlight that these are the “declared” meetings. 

*In this report we will 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. 

1. Broader findings:

During the first four months of the new European Commission, civil servants from across Directorates-General (DGs) reported over 2800 meetings (in addition to 4600 meetings of the cabinets) with socio-economic stakeholders. Following the updates of the transparency requirements, meetings have been published by 55 Directors General and their deputies, 115 Directors and 329 Heads of Unit.

As shown in the chart below, the highest levels of engagement with socio-economic stakeholders was conducted by DG FISMA (finance), DG CNECT (digital), DG ENER (energy), and DG GROW (industry and internal market). This largely reflects what current “hot spots” of the upcoming regulation are.

However, other “hot spots” seem to see less interaction. Notably, other DGs responsible for critical EU priorities — such as DG DEFIS (defence) and DG TRADE — recorded relatively low levels of stakeholder engagement during this initial period.

This disparity may reflect differing engagement strategies across sectors and stages of the policy cycle. In some cases, stakeholders may prioritize outreach at the political level — namely, Commissioners and their cabinets — over civil servant-level engagement, or vice versa. For example, while DG TRADE shows a lower number of meetings, Commissioner Šefčovič's cabinet reports comparatively high levels of stakeholder consultations, as illustrated in the following chart:

2. Analysis by political and policy levels

Engaging with a wider and representative range of socio-economic stakeholders with a significant share in the European economy (providing jobs, tax revenues, products, services, or social support) is an indication of the validation and policy relevance of a policy-maker — and conversely, for socio-economic stakeholders, engagement with a broad spectrum of policy-makers reflects their institutional recognition and strategic positioning.

Which Commissioners engage the most?

We defined an indicator called “Consultation strength”, 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 which we used as a proxy the size of their accredited PA team). You can check the detailed methodology in the annex at the end of this document.

As shown in the chart below, Commissioner Jessika Roswall recorded the highest level of direct consultations with socio-economic stakeholders during the first four months of the new European Commission (see the blue bars indicating individual Commissioners' consultation strength). From another angle, when we take into account the full cabinet — i.e. combining meetings held by both the Commissioner and their cabinet staff — then Stéphane Séjourné stands out by a significant margin as the most engaging overall. Other cabinets who are (more directly) in charge of areas where we expect heavy legislative load have also been rather busy engaging with stakeholders, such as those of Commissioners Šefčovič, Ribera, Jorgensen, Hoekstra, Virkkunen, Dombrovskis, Tzitzikostas, Hansen, Mînzatu, Albuquerque or McGrath. 

Cabinets linked to industrial and environmental portfolios appear to be the most active in stakeholder outreach — a trend that aligns with the strategic priorities shaping the second von der Leyen Commission.

Which cabinet members engage the most?

A distinctive feature of the von der Leyen II Commission is the overlapping responsibilities shared across Commissioners in key policy areas. This makes it especially relevant to track not only which Commissioners lead on stakeholder engagement, but also which cabinet members are driving outreach in specific sectors. The following chart highlights the top cabinet members by consultation strength across a range of policy categories.

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

For example, in the realm of environmental policy, Vita Junke from Roswall's cabinet emerges as the key figure with the highest level of consultations with socio-economic stakeholders. She is closely followed by active members of the Séjourné, Roswall, Hansen and Ribera cabinets, thus showing how multiple cabinets are engaging on environmental policy.

Meanwhile, when it comes to industry, innovation, and internal market files, Arthur Corbin from Séjourné's cabinet clearly stands out as the go-to contact at the level of Commissioners’ cabinets. He is followed by other members of Séjourné cabinets: Aleksandra Kordecka and Bertrand L'huillier. Adam Romanowski (Šefčovič's team) and Simone Ritzek-Seidl (Tzitzikostas' cabinet) also maintain a strong presence in these strategic areas.

On digital and communication, the picture is also rather diverse. While Werner Stengg from Virkkunen’s cabinet leads in term of consultation strength, members of McGrath’s team (Egelyn Braun and Maria Zafra Saura), as well as Hanna Anttilainen from Séjourné's cabinet, and Xavier Coget (also from Virkkunen’s cabinet) are also rather active on digital policy discussions.

Which DGs-level civil servants engage the most?

The chart below highlights the European Commission’s DGs-level civil servants with the strongest consultation activity with socio-economic stakeholders. The top ranking is now dominated by heads of unit from particularly active DGs, especially FISMA , with Maria Raffealla Assetta occupying the top posiiton, and Tatyana Panova in the third place. Mark Nicklas from the key DG GROW is at the second place. 

Interestingly, the data also features at its top more prominent figures like Kurt Vandenberghe (Director-General of DG CLIMA) and Gerassimos Thomas (Director-General of DG TAXUD), both at the forefront of high-stakes EU policy areas. This blend of senior leadership and mid-level expertise reflects how both political weight and technical know-how shape engagement dynamics within the Commission. . 

The chart below shows the consultation strength specifically for Heads of Units, thus highlighting the key civil servants that lead on the highly specialised files where regulatory activity is particularly intense:

• Maria Raffaella Assetta (International Affairs, DG FISMA) leads EU engagement on financial regulation with global partners, covering G20, the US, UK, and sustainable finance.
• Mark Nicklas (Mobility, DG GROW) oversees policy for automotive, rail, and maritime sectors amid upcoming revisions to CO₂ emission standards.
• Tatyana Panova (Capital Markets Union, DG FISMA) heads EU efforts to deepen capital markets and boost investment through CMU reforms.
• Maria Isabel Garcia Catalan (Rules of Origin and Customs Valuation, DG TAXUD) oversees EU customs rules on origin and valuation, ensuring trade compliance and simplification.
• Didier Millerot (Sustainable Finance, DG FISMA) drives EU sustainable finance policy, including taxonomy and ESG integration in markets.

These profiles reflect stakeholder interest in policy areas undergoing significant regulatory shifts—particularly in finance, environment, and industry. The prominence of units from DG FISMA and DG GROW among the top ranks confirms their strategic importance for the EU industrial plans.

Looking at the broader chart of Directors and Directors-General, similar patterns emerge. In addition to Vandenberghe (CLIMA) and Thomas (TAXUD), high consultation scores for Elisa Rollert (SG - responsible for Competitiveness and Prosperity), John Berrigan (DG FISMA) and Sabine Weyand (DG TRADE) highlight growing attention to EU competitiveness topics, including trade and financial aspects, etc. 

3. Who are the most engaging socio-economic stakeholders? 

We also assessed the strength of each socio-economic stakeholder’s engagement with Commission representatives across policy areas. Actively engaging with the Commission is an indicator of its recognition as an institutional policy partner, strategic positioning and contribution to specific policy debates in Brussels. This is currently the closest estimation of the outreach and impact of its campaign. However, the actual impact on policy output requires an additional layer of data and analysis, which we are working to build next and which we will provide in the form of an advanced set of indicators to our premium users.

Which stakeholders engage the most?

We defined an indicator called “Campaign strength”, which takes into account not just the number of meetings as such, but also the weight of the Commission's civil servant. You can find the detailed methodology in the annex at the end of this document.

The following two charts show the campaign strength (in points) of socio-economic stakeholders engaging with 1) the Commissioners and their Cabinets and 2) with DGs-level civil servants (from head of unit upwards), across all topics.

At the political level — including Commissioners and their cabinets — trade associations generally emerge as the most active stakeholders, which comes as no surprise, as the these represent the largest figures in terms of jobs, taxes, products and services provided to the EU's society. These include broad umbrella organisations such as BUSINESSEUROPE, as well as sector-specific ones like ACEA (automotive) and EFPIA (health). Their high level of engagement reflects the significant impact of the EU's recent and upcoming regulations (e.g. securitisation of the supply chains) on the competitiveness of these sectors. Notably, AmChamEU and EU Chamber in China are also in "Top 20" consulted policy partners, explicable not only by the size of the network of businesses they represent, but also by the EU's current tense trade relations with these two global powers. 

In contrast, consultations on digital policy tend to take place more directly with individual companies at political (cabinets) level, particularly the biggest tech market players such as Amazon, Apple, Meta and Google, while Digital Europe is engaged more at the technical (DGs) level - see the following section. 

NGOs are also remarkably prominent at the political level. Key actors in this space include the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), Transport & Environment, WWF, BEUC or Save the Children, all of which maintain a consistent presence in high-level consultations. ETUC, the umbrella of trade unions, is also among the top political-level engagers. 

We also examined stakeholder engagement at the more technical level — that is, with civil servants within the Directorates-General (DGs). The top organisations span a range of sectors, with notable representation from agricultural trade groups such as COPA-COGECA (European Farmers) and AVEC (representing the poultry sector), but also Eurofer and Digital Europe. The financial sector is also highly engaged by policy makers, particularly major firms and banks like Allianz, Banco Santander, and Swedbank. The relevance of the trade relations with Asia is highlighted by the presence at the top of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China and the EU-ASEAN Business Council.

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. 

Annex

Detailed methodology:

1) Consultation strength of Commission representatives: 

We defined an indicator called “Consultation strength”, 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 in the EU’s economy and society, but also of how much the EU policy impacts on its activity. Furthermore, this type of data is easily comparable across stakeholders.  

We classified each meeting between a Commission official 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: Jacob Werksman (civil servant from DG CLIMA) met with two different socio-economic stakeholders, Deutsche Bank AG and Stichting European Climate Foundation. The declared size of their PA team (full-time equivalent) is 3.9 for Deutsche Bank and 15 for the European Climate Foundation, for a total of 15 + 3.9 = 18.9. Therefore, Werksman's Consultation Strength is 18.9.

2) Campaign strength of socio-economic stakeholders: 

We defined an indicator called “Campaign strength”, which takes into account not only the number of meetings as such, but also the weight of the civil servant inside the Commission. For the time being, to determine the weight of a civil servant, we used their level as a proxy indicator. Socio-economic stakeholders received 5 points for each meeting with a Commissioner, 3 points for each meeting with a cabinet member or a Director General, 2 points for each meeting with a Director, 1 point for each meeting with a Head of Unit, or others.

Virtual example: the European University Association had two meetings in total, one meeting with a head of unit and one meeting with a Director. The total Campaign strength for this organisation is therefore 2 (Director) + 1 (Head of Unit) = 3 points