Those wanting to transform a republic should first study its nature at any time, as otherwise they cannot apply the proper methods and will harm both the republic and themselves. What does this view of Machiavelli (Discorsi, book 3-8) imply for one's ambition to influence the EU?

I Whom to Lobby in an Arena and on What?

Following up on the end of the previous chapter,we dedicate this one to the extroverted window-out scanning and the management of what happens in a particular arena. An arena is not a physical place, but the virtual collection of stakeholders, including EU officials, together with their interests-at-issue with regard to a specific dossier at a specific moment. Usually a dossier is a paper or proposal from the Commission, but it may also be an issue forwarded by another institution or a stakeholder's platform. As in the EU every dossier is controversial to some extent, a ‘dossier’ and ‘arena’ can be used as synonyms. Both are time-specific, as they can change by content or composition any time, in short they are situational. After the general introduction of arena-analysis below, we shall outline the method of scanning an arena and present the ‘quick scan’ for getting an elementary overview of either a single dossier or the long-list of dossiers assessed as relevant. Because this preparatory homework is only a necessary means for PA success, we subsequently anticipate chapter 6 and present as appetizers ‘better lobby practises’ based on such homework, and also a case-study. In chapter 5 we question how the interest group can downsize its long-list into a shared-list and a short-list and can get better organized for window-out and window-in activities.

Our leading question here is whom to lobby in an arena of stakeholders and issues, and on what? The simple-minded interest group, at no higher than ‘secondary school’ level and still amateurish, will regard this question as superfluous. It knows what it wants to get from EU officials and finds their names and addresses in an EU directory. Then it approaches them as directly as possible and tries to convince them that their best response is to comply with its demand as soon as possible. If it gets a refusal, it will probably make a lot of noise at home or in the EU and launch a second strike, now joined by a number of ‘friends’ gathered in the meantime.