h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Sprout. I'm sub-editing your 'Influencing the EU' entry at A83468073. I've a couple of questions.

Do you think the title would be better as "Influencing the European Union"?

You say "The EP has a petitions committee". Can you confirm that EP here is the European Parliament?

I'm confused by this sentence:

"These kind of strategies are ineffective because they render the original idea ineffective, and the people working to get the law through that know it well."

-- Do you mean that the strategies render the people working on the law ineffective? Or did you mean to say "the people know this well"?

G

Hi Gnomon

Yes, to the first two.

What I meant by the last comment is that the negotiators working on the law know that certain types of compromise tend to lead to the legal act being impossible to implement, or ineffective.

Naturally enough, they resist this kind of amendment much more fiercely than a compromise that does not affect the overall balance of the legal act.

Is that any better?

Regards,

sprout

I've reworded that paragraph as follows. Are you happy with this?

In addition, try and refine your strategy. It is highly ineffective to say 'I'm a special case - make an exception in your law for me', or to say 'All small businesses should be exempt because we can't handle any extra paperwork'. These strategies fail because they render the original idea ineffective, and the people working to get the law through know this, so they will resist your proposals. What can work better is trying to water things down or beef things up a bit - why have a target when you could have a benchmark, or vice versa? Or to move things, like your business, for example, from one category of the law to another.

Perfect, thanks.

sprout