WEBVTT

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Hello again everyone, so you've heard from the politicians, you've heard from the people

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who are making the decisions and now you're going to hear for the people who work for them.

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So in the room today we have the wonderful Sebastian Rebler, formerly the assistant to

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MEP Sergei Lagerdinsky, we have Jul Ovory, who is the current assistant to marketer

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and we have myself, Jordan Maris, formerly assistant to Karen Melkeur and so presently Sebastian's

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working with a pal, the open source business association and I'm working with the open source

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initiative. So we'll just let people come in. We're going to talk to you today about like

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how you can make the change happen, who you need to talk to, who you need to contact, what you

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need to do if you see something that you don't like or if you just want to watch what's

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going on and maybe chime in. So it's going to start with me and I don't know if you guys know

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the meme of the conspiracy fairy man with like the you know yeah well it's going to be a bit

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like that because I'm about to explain to you how the EU makes laws in as quick a time as possible.

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So how we make laws and how you can influence them. Well they have to start somewhere they start

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almost always with the European Commission. So the European Commission it's like the government

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of the EU and it's the only bought body of the EU which can propose laws. Now they get the ideas

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from these laws from lots of different places. There's the parliament so parliament can write what's

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like essentially an own initiative report and they'll say we want you to do this, the Commission

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then have to answer we're not doing this for this reason or we're doing this because it's a good

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idea. They can come from citizens so there's something called the European Citizens Initiative

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which I'll talk to you in a bit more detail about later. They can also come from the

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governments of EU countries and finally the Commission can also come up with ideas for them

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of their own which they are regularly do. Now what then happens is they start to prepare a law right

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so they add it to what they're thinking they work program they have one a year it's essentially

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the list of all the things they are going to do. Once they've done that they have to do a bunch of

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stuff. First thing, stakeholder consultations. Now you may not know this but you are in fact

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stakeholders. Everybody in this room is a stakeholder and everybody can actually participate in

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that process. I'll explain a little more in depth in a minute. They also have to do research and

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evaluations of the laws that we already have on the books and an impact assessment to see how the law

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will affect citizens but where you can have the most impact I'd say is here, here and here.

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So the European Citizens Initiative is the first way you can do things but it's also quite difficult

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you need to get a total of 1 million signatures from around the European Union it's a lot of signatures

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and there are minimum thresholds for each country depending on how many people there are in the country.

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It also needs organizers from 7 EU countries which is sometimes a bit of a challenge

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so to be very frank it's not good for niche issues so unless you have something which is going to

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capture the attention of 1 in 500 Europeans it might not be the best way but the good news is there are

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other ways you can directly petition the European Parliament you can go on the website and send a

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petition there's a committee dedicated to looking at those petitions and making suggestions but the best ways

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to do things is to get your idea into a Parliament report so in an initiative report by Parliament

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now you can look on the Parliament's website to see what is being worked on and if you see

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something that sounds like something that's interesting for example right now there is digital fairness

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act and I am personally invested in making sure that we get rid of DRM in printed cartridges

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so I've just decided to respond to that so you can you can you can speak to any piece you can

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reach out to them and we'll learn more how to do that in a minute and ask about that there's also

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that have your sayportals so this is the stakeholder thing right anybody can go on this website

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and all of the laws are in the works you have the possibility to send your feedback to and I know

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because I work with people from the commission all the time that they actually take this feedback

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very seriously so it is worth writing feedback on OSI and appell regularly do so so yeah you should

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too yeah I'm sorry this is a horrible thing and this is where I start to look like a conspiracy

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Ferris but I want to very very quickly go through the process with you so once the commission

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have written their law they're proposal for a law they're going they're going to send it off to

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two different institutions says the Parliament and there's the council we're not going to talk

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about the council because they're more difficult to influence but we are going to talk about the

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Parliament because that's also our area of expertise so when it gets to Parliament we distribute it

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and it works a bit like get actually so you're going to have your branch in the council it's

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going to be distributed to the Parliament and it would be distributed to one or multiple committees

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groups of Parliament MPs like Marquette who are working on a specific subject

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then there's going to be people chosen to be in charge of it now we call them the

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rapporteur and the shadow rapporteurs the rapporteurs one MP from one group and there will be

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shadow rapporteurs from all of the other political groups so you know it might be it might be a

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social democrat who's in charge but you can also reach out to the other MPs who are in charge

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this information is on the Parliament's website then there's the presentation so you can watch

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these presentations online and essentially it's a room full of MPs working on the topic and the

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law will be presented by the guy or woman or person who's in charge of the law after the

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presentation there'll be a delay for MPs to submit changes or amendments to the law and after

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that the rapporteur who's in charge will have to take a look at all of those things and then

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Julie discard them and ignore them to pick their own things but that's not the end of the story

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because then the negotiations begin and everything is up for grabs during this time you can

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reach out to MPs and ask them to submit amendments you can talk to them about problems that's

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what they're here for so you just have to work out who to reach out to now the negotiations are

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complicated but essentially there are two parts there's the parts where the MPs are negotiating

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and the parts where as lowly assistance are negotiating and essentially we go back and forth

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like this until we come to an agreement where the MPs are okay with what we've come up with and

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when we can't agree we leave it to the MPs to work it out amongst themselves once we have a agreement

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the committee votes on what they've done and then it goes off to be voted on in the whole Parliament

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and that's a whole other story which we're not going to tell today oh apparently we are going to tell

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it today sometimes this happens yeah and then so last step when it goes off to be voted on by the

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full Parliament even if everything has gone horribly wrong up until here and you haven't managed

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to get your voice heard in plenary so that's when all of the MPs are in one room voting on a

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topic there is still a chance to fix things and it happens quite regularly and it's quite dramatic

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it was my favorite part of the job so you have an opportunity to ask MPs to submit amendments to

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the laws which will be voted on in plenary and you can change it at the last minute in fix things

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it's harder but it is also possible and it happens quite regularly once it's been adopted

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we then have to go back and negotiate with the council but again that in fact is a story

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for another day so yeah recap where can you influence the process the have your say portal which

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we will link to somewhere probably at the end of the presentation MPs the ones that you need to

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reach out to and write amendments the repertoire when he's writing his report during negotiations

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towards the end and finally during the plenary if you haven't managed up until then and now I'm

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going to hand over to anybody Sebastian you want to start to talk about following the law making

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process how you can keep up on things all right that's a bit unexpected I was going to

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extend upon a bit what you said before about how to how to lobby the council and that it's so

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so hard but a lot of people that I see here I've seen your faces before a lot of you are already

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invested and a lot of you are talking with people that are already invested or that are activists

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on the on the regional local or national level and I think that's the the easiest way to

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to influence the council by already to talk by talking to the context that you already have

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in national governments so the council is a bit obscure also to people who have worked in the

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parliament for a long time but it's it's not impossible to do it I think it's it's most important

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to keep up with the with the discussions and if you have a ask if you have a topic that you

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want to introduce into European law making to not stay alone with it there are occasionally

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the cases where submitting something to the Petitions Committee or trying to build a

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citizen's initiative might work out without connecting to a lot of movements and to a lot of

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other people or writing an email to an individual and parliament but that does not connect your

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ask to a bigger story and that's what a politician will usually be looking for or what also the

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commission will be looking for does a demand connect with something that is really important to

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society when it comes to the politicians they have to find things that they can talk to voters about

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right to to be elected to continue having their job so so make sure that you try and connect with

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narratives in the previous session we were talking about how do we bring open source awareness to

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the EU well we try to do that but I work for business associations so the narrative for us is

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competitiveness now recently the vice president of the commission had a technological sovereignty

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added to her title so speak about how your project contributes to that technological sovereignty

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following the the process keep up with the news try to connect with other people find community

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and don't be encouraged and especially if you do feel encouraged from time to time

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with time being tough for most of us these days do find community that's what I really

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would suggest yeah would actually agree to that I think the open source community is the best for

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organizing itself in finding a lot of people working on the same topic or on the same project

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and imagine this as a project basically so if you want to influence a low as he as he mentioned

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you have several steps in which you can intervene you can follow that on the parliament's website

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especially the the single A which is the the if you like yeah which is the parliament's website

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where you can find actually what he mentioned like the shadows the the rapporteur the people

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are working on the topic or on the specific file when you're trying to reach out to an MEP the best

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you can do is actually be timely that that's all very obvious but when we're working on the file

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for us the critical part is before we submit the amendments so if you come before that that's the

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best possible option for us because then that means that from the very beginning we mentioned that

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topic and that topic will be all in on the negotiations brought up back again and again from us

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yes you can see like for any lore if you go on this website and scroll down

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sorry for any lore if you go on this website and scroll down you can see who's in charge of it

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who's the rapporteur yeah oh there's a strong percussion from over there and you can also see

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who else you can reach out to on the process and yeah so and so so it's really useful to know

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who you need to contact if you click on any of the profiles let's let's get another reaction

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why do you have links to email social media and ever or else where you can reach the

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past name question yeah and I was actually my second thing to be very targeted because when you're

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working on a very specific topic they are just a few members of the repaint parlaments that are

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working on the topic so don't reach out to all of them because most of them won't care anyway but

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the the critical ones in each political group you will kind of find them by finding the critical

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fights on that topic and you will see they will be always shadow rapporteur or rapporteur on

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this topic and then you reach out to them and they will be the ones dealing with it most probably

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I thought the next one was titled chasing the MEPs because do keep being friendly

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but if you if you have sent an email to an office for example do try and follow up within one or two

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days give them a phone call don't be discouraged if they don't have time for you that moment

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try again if you can it's always good to try and follow up with an email because literally

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we received so many emails they they just fall under how do you say under the table changing views

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who's taking that so I'm a little nervous now because I have two MEPs in the room and I'm

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going to do some psychoanalysis of MEPs so sorry sorry in advance guys now when it comes to changing

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MEPs views my the most important thing I can say to you is find something that they've already said

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and say it back to them sorry sorry so so like if you if you take first of all take a look at

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what they're interested like if you have a specific MEP you know you can see the laws they've

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worked on in the past you can see also who they've spoken to because we we do that transparency

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transparently in the EU so you can see which lobbyists have got to them before you but what I'd

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really recommend is look at what they've been saying look at their views check their social media

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see okay you know what drives this person and work out how you can sell them your thing on the basis

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of that that's really important part of it when it's possible now obviously in some cases it's not

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possible but most of the time there is an argument for open source no matter which political side

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you're on you know like the argument with Axel Voss who you just saw on screen will be a

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competitiveness argument it will be saving money from saving public money argument you might not

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have the same argument on the other side of the spectrum you might have arguments about equity

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and access and transparency so you know kind of tailored to your audience but another really

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important thing that okay doesn't apply to the MEPs in this room but but another really

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important thing is that when the process starts when we start making a law we actually don't

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know where the middle ground is going to be so what you have to understand is that with with a

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few exceptions pointing to them now most of the MEPs in parliament are not really specialists in

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one subject so they might be working on a law where they're relying on a lot of people like you

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and also a lot of people who work in industry to come and give them input and their job is to

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work out where the middle actually is where what is the best thing for society so let's say you're

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writing a letter to an MEP about let's say I don't know if you guys know chat control it's an

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EU law about monitoring our communications you go at it from a privacy perspective and you write an

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email which is very strong on privacy you the way that you will be considered by the MEPs okay this

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person is an activist and that's not a bad thing but it moves the middle a little bit less so depending

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on the arguments you're going to make you have to pick what you want to say so the chat control

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example one of the things you could say as well this law is actually going to generate more

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false positives for law enforcement so it's actually going to make it harder and that's like a

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middle ground argument and if you say that and you you can talk about privacy but if you talk

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about that more then you rebalance the thing and the middle ground moves more in your direction

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right because suddenly they're thinking okay this person's not just here to talk about privacy

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they also actually want this law to work and so you you know you have the opportunity to be

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listened to a bit more so my recommendation would be when you write to MEPs tell you your letter

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consider your topic but consider things around it the MEP might be open to what interested in

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as well that I'm handing everything to you to say something I don't know what you know as we said

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the beginning I think see that as a project and there are a lot of people in that room that

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we are already working on the EU as such more than open source or both of them so you can also

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reach out to these people like you have organizations working on these topics who can actually

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represent you here and who to whom we talk to on a regular basis with with market I especially

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so you're not alone in this and if you feel a bit of a one and you just want to come

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with one specific opinion you can also reach out to them or reach out to other people who you

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know will have the expertise to bring you to the person to who you should talk to.

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Well last thing from my side if I may I know times up but there is a lot of activity happening

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here in Brussels there are organizations that already know how this thing works so if you don't yet

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or if you feel like you have a question then reach out to who's ever closest to you specifically

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in the room is the free software foundation Europe for example I want point to people

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anymore there is open for a Europe that I'm not pointing to and there is a European digital

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rights for example that you couldn't connect to and they are maybe certain parties that you

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want to connect to that I'm not pointing to. Well that's it thank you very much guys and

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yeah that was really lovely hope it's been useful so next on the agenda I think we have

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Toby Toby oh yes sorry

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offer an alternative for instance chat control is a really great example

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because it's very nice to say this is bad for privacy or it won't work because it will

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produce false positives but still in most of the MEP's minds what is back of their minds is

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but this is about protecting children so I really need to do something and when they are

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puzzled they don't know what to do maybe they decide to vote in favor of this chat control provision

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because it's at least something so I think an important part of it is to offer an alternative

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solution and say oh maybe then we need a better access for law enforcement targeted to individuals who

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are suspected from sharing child sexual abuse material implemented in the law instead of chat control

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that will work much better and then maybe they will say oh wow that that's a good idea let's

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let's try to find a look into it a bit let's try to look into it a bit more

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goodness that it better myself thank you very much Vasel