There are some 3500 NGO groups active in Brussels, ranging from small, bizarre causes to large global groups like WWF or Amnesty International. The main NGO and civil society groups are united in broad coalitions, like the ‘Green 10’ that unites the largest green activist organisations, the ‘Social Platform’ groups 35+ social NGO federations, and the ‘Youth Forum’ has 90+ youth groups. There is a huge overlap between organizations, and there could be serious consolidation between organizations driving the same agendas.

I have worked closely with many such groups, on climate change, disability policies, green causes, human rights, and in other areas. Most of the people and causes are well-intentioned and doing important work like promoting human rights, press freedom and so on. The largest are wealthy, wily, and can be manipulative. Some have staff upwards of 50 people, but most are smaller, badly organized and suffer from unpredictable finances.

Some of these groups are incredibly wealthy receiving either huge donations from legacies, or a large membership base. For example, the little-known European Climate Foundation has an estimated annual budget of over €25 million – a lot of which is spent trying to influence European policies.

NGOs use a variety of techniques to get attention for their causes, but what makes some NGOs interesting is their imaginative use of noisy and eye-catching techniques. We can all remember activists hanging onto some tower or parachuting into some summit or some such stunts.

In Brussels, a favoured technique is a loud demonstration next to the European Parliament or the European Council building. Everyone in Brussels can remember climate marches or farmers demonstrations with large number of loud tractors blocking traffic. One of the farmers once told me that most of the tractors were from one firm which rented them out also for demonstrations.