Innsbruck 2002

EAPC • Europe Meeting • May 1 to 4, 2002 • Innsbruck /Austria

Speeches

Horst Becker
Erhard Busek
Michael Carmichael
Ana Fernandes
Peter Frei
Helmut Mader
Dominik Meier
Joe Napolitan
Fritz Plasser
Guido Schommer
Carlo Willeit


Dominik Meier


Presentation of the "Berlin Initiative of Young Political Consultants"

Being a political consultant in Germany is still a big challenge. Therefore, I am very thankful to Mr. Hartinger and Prof. Riegger for offering me the opportunity to present to you a new initiative of the younger generation of German political consultants working in Germany and in Brussels.

When I had the idea to bring the younger generation of political consultants in Germany together in a meeting in Berlin, I was not aware how challenging such an undertaking would be. However, the kick-off meeting, which I am organising together with three other political consultants, will take place on the 25th of May. Unfortunately, the meeting could not be held before this EAPC congress as initially planned. Therefore, I cannot report on the results of the meeting, but I hope, that I can give you in the following minutes an idea about the initiative itself and about the future role of German political consultants as we see it.

I. The Future Challenges for Political Consultants in Germany

Political consulting in Germany is still mainly done within political parties, associations, and foundations as well as publicly funded think tanks. Political consulting is therefore strongly institutionalised and hierarchic. Political parties, in particular, together with their foundations and academies have a dense local, regional and national network of human, financial and technical resources at their disposal. State funding of political parties in Germany ensures that the parties and their parliamentary groups have a continuous and long-term financial basis which allows them to develop extensive expertise.

It is therefore very difficult for political consultants in Germany to develop political parties as clients and to survive financially with clients exclusively from the political field. Political consultants must develop new sources of income and new fields of activity. Many have decided to work for established public relations agencies who have set up departments for public affairs or to provide their services as employees to political parties or governments for a limited period of time. The professional self-employed political consultant who works with different clients at the same time is still an exception in Germany. German political consultants generally enter the field following the "learning-by-doing" principle since there exist no adequate opportunities for education and training.

However, recent changes that have taken place in the political field in Germany offer political consultants new opportunities. Media and election campaigns, strategic policy consulting and the influence of the Internet increasingly dominate discussions and practice in the political field. Political consulting in Germany is no longer mainly associated with academic policy consulting carried out by publicly funded organisations for the government and the German Parliament, but also with campaigning, political communication, public affairs or polling. The increasing importance of the European Union in political decision making has also affected political consulting. For example, the influence of associations has been decreasing in favour of lobbying provided by external professional lobbying and public affairs agencies for individual client organisations.

If the next generation of political consultants wants to profit from these changes in the political arena, they have to develop a high level of professionalism and specialisation. In addition, political consultants will have to meet technical challenges as indicated by terms like political polling, online-surveys, e-government, direct mailing, web campaigning, and fundraising.

The fight for the positions in the political field has in recent years produced a new type of political consultant. This new political professional offers his services both to the political decision-makers in government, parliament and political parties and to companies and organisations that strive for more influence on politics. This professional works in the fields of campaigning, political communication, public affairs, lobbying, strategic policy consulting, strategic research and specialised Internet communication and campaigning. The boundaries between self-employment freelance work and short-term employment are fluent. The increasingly popular term political management reflects recent developments.

The political consultant who has developed his professional approach and technological know-how through experience with a wide range of clients from politics, business and civil society at national and international levels differs from the internal staff in institutions active in the political field in Germany. With a professional, external and independent approach political consultants can offer valuable services also to clients such as political parties which have internal staff. . With its external professional know-how the political consultant can complement the work done internally in organisations and companies active in the political field.

The success of the next generation of political consultants will not only depend on specific knowledge such as that of communication and promotion strategies but also on a comprehensive understanding of political practices and different power structures at national and international levels. For this reason many public relations and communication agencies have difficulties when they try to enter the political field with public affairs departments. Political practice requires to combine analytical abilities with strategic competence and to convert this into easily communicable concepts.
The complexity of the political decision-making process as well as the heterogeneity of the actors involved in the national and international political arena presents political consultants with an enormous task. Political consultants have to prove their professionalism not only to the actors in the political field. The political consultant of tomorrow must have the skills to relay political ideas successfully to a strongly fragmented public that constantly places a multitude ofvarious demands on politicians.

II. Objectives of the Berlin Initiative

Let me come back to the "Berlin Initiative of young political consultants". The Kick-off Meeting of this initiative tries to go new ways by bringing young political consultants working in Germany and Brussels together and thus providing a platform for the professional interchange across ideological or party-political borders.

The subjects of the discussion will derive from the challenges mentioned above:

The Website for the Berlin initiative of young political consultants is currently being established under the address www.degepol.de.

Professional, flexible, network and technology-oriented must be important attributes of the next generation of political consultants. We see the exchange of experience and networking as a chance to help us position ourselves successfully at national and international level. In the Berlin Initiative young political consultants co-operate to address some of the big challenges in developing political consulting as a profession in Germany without, of course, loosing sight of the competition among ourselves. The conditions for political consultants in Germany will never be like in the United States. The German market for political consulting will remain small. If political consultants want to play an important role in future, they have to become more professional. The Berlin initiative strives to make a step towards meeting this challenge.