What this report covers

This report analyses over 62,000 declared MEP–stakeholder meeting pairs (derived from almost 54,000 meeting declarations) between Members of the European Parliament and socio-economic stakeholders over a 21-month period (June 2024 – February 2026), covering 662 MEPs across all political groups and 27 member states.

Why outreach matters

Stakeholder outreach is how MEPs validate policy positions, stress-test legislative proposals, and ensure that regulation reflects the complexity of the sectors it governs. MEPs who engage broadly — with industry, civil society, trade unions, and NGOs — produce legislation grounded in real-world expertise and competing perspectives. Through sustained outreach, MEPs gain deep sectoral expertise, strengthen the representativeness of their positions, and build the networks of support that underpin effective legislative careers. In an era when maintaining long-term public trust is increasingly challenging for elected representatives, the ability to demonstrate informed, consultative lawmaking — backed by dialogue with the full spectrum of affected parties — is a significant source of political legitimacy and influence. High engagement correlates with legislative responsibility: rapporteurs and shadow rapporteurs consistently rank among the most active MEPs in stakeholder outreach.

Key findings

A clear North-West / South-East divide emerges. Nordic and Benelux MEPs declare substantially more stakeholder meetings than their Southern and Eastern European counterparts. These differences may reflect varying national traditions of structured stakeholder dialogue, the policy weight of sectors concentrated in certain member states (e.g. automotive in Germany, agriculture in France), and the number of committee leadership positions held by each country’s MEPs. Italy stands out: despite being the fourth-largest delegation (72 MEPs), its average outreach (just over 53 meetings per MEP) is closer to that of smaller Eastern European countries than to its Western European peers.

The four mainstream groups (Greens/EFA, Renew, S&D, EPP) account for the vast majority of declared meetings. The sharp drop-off to ECR (55+), and particularly to Patriots for Europe (under 30) and ESN (under 15 meetings per MEP, engaging fewer than 80 unique stakeholders across the entire group) is striking. Societal stakeholders — industry associations, NGOs, trade unions, research organisations — appear to concentrate their outreach efforts on MEPs and groups they consider most likely to shape legislative outcomes, which may explain why groups with fewer committee leadership positions and rapporteurships attract substantially less engagement.

The top-ranking MEPs are typically active on high-profile regulatory files that attract sustained stakeholder engagement. Christian Ehler (#1) leads with extensive outreach across energy companies, industrial federations, and research organisations on environment, competitiveness, and innovation policy. Andrea Wechsler (#2) met 392 unique stakeholders, predominantly energy companies, grid operators, and industry associations. Peter Liese (#3) held almost 570 meetings, drawing on long-standing authority on environment and health files. Sebastian Tynkkynen (#4) stands out as the MEP with the most meetings overall (742).

Pascal Canfin (#5) engages industry, environmental NGOs, and trade associations on sustainability and green-transition files. Eero Heinäluoma (#6) meets stakeholders across economic governance, energy, and EU institutional affairs. Kira Marie Peter-Hansen (#7) is active on sustainable finance and economic governance files, meeting both environmental and financial stakeholders. Bruno Tobback (#8) meets almost entirely energy and industrial stakeholders. Birgit Sippel (#9) engages refugee support organisations, digital rights groups, and civil liberties networks across migration, digital, and justice files. Aura Salla (#10) has a strong digital and technology focus, with 153 meetings in the Digital sector alone.

The rest of the top 20 shows a strong environment and energy cluster — Michael Bloss (#12), Jeannette Baljeu (#13), Jens Gieseke (#14) and Jan-Christoph Oetjen (#16) all meet primarily environment, transport, and energy stakeholders — alongside MEPs with distinct profiles: Alexandra Geese (#11) is Parliament’s most digitally focused top-ranker, meeting digital rights organisations, consumer bodies, and tech companies. Daniel Freund (#15) concentrates on anti-corruption and transparency stakeholders. Hildegard Bentele (#18) engages development, innovation, and environment stakeholders, while Lukas Mandl (#20) meets primarily foreign policy and development actors. Oliver Schenk (#19) stands out with a health-focused portfolio — pharmaceutical and medtech stakeholders — across 269 unique organisations.

Note: The Foreign Policy, Security & Development Cooperation sector is not included in these rankings. Meetings in this area frequently involve heads of state, foreign ministers, and ambassadors who fall outside the EU Transparency Register framework, making them more complex to track and compare.

• The outreach gap across political groups. Societal stakeholders — industry associations, NGOs, trade unions, research organisations — appear to concentrate their engagement efforts on MEPs and groups they consider most likely to shape legislative outcomes. This creates a self-reinforcing dynamic: groups with fewer committee leadership positions attract less stakeholder interest, which in turn may limit the expertise and networks available to their MEPs.
• The North-West / South-East divide. MEPs from Nordic and Benelux countries declare substantially more meetings than their Southern and Eastern European counterparts. Whether this reflects differing national political cultures, varying levels of Brussels-based stakeholder infrastructure, or different attitudes toward transparency remains an open question.
• The role of staff in stakeholder outreach. Almost 28% of all declared MEP meetings carry a “Staff meeting” label, but the practice of crediting staff involvement varies enormously — from 0% for some MEPs to over 90% for others. Commission meeting declarations already identify each cabinet member by name, which allows individual staffers to build a visible track record of stakeholder engagement. A similar practice for MEPs’ accredited parliamentary assistants (APAs) — crediting them by name in meeting declarations — would give these professionals the recognition they deserve for their contribution to the legislative process, while providing a more complete picture of how each office organises its outreach.

Note: The Stakeholder Outreach Score presented in this report is one component of the broader MEP Influence Index, which EU Matrix has calculated regularly across parliamentary terms. The MEP Influence Index evaluates MEPs’ political influence across five dimensions — leadership positions, legislative work, political networks, committee roles, and voting behaviour — drawing on over 15 years of experience measuring EU political dynamics. The first edition of the Index for the current (10th) parliamentary term is being readied for publication.