The Programme on European Negotiations (PEN) is an initiative aiming to streamline and unite EIPA’s actions of learning, development, coaching and research on the negotiation processes involving national and European officials within the EU governance system. The PEN aims to bring negotiation theory to EU decision-making processes, rationality and pragmatism to intuitive negotiation skills, shared best practices to individual negotiation experiences, and research to European negotiations as a whole. Open training activities of PEN consist of four complementary seminars to enhance the participation of individual representatives and negotiators in European decision-shaping and decision-taking processes: EU Negotiation Techniques (I); Managing Communication and Intercultural Challenges (II); Managing Negotiations with the European Parliament (III); and the Presidency Challenges (IV). The four activities have been designed as a professional curriculum to accompany European negotiators; they can also be attended individually in no particular sequence.
Target group
The seminar will be directly relevant for all regional, national and EU officials who take part in the negotiations inherent to the decision-shaping and decision-taking processes of the European Union. In particular, case handlers and coordinators based in national capitals, regions or agencies, representatives in Council Preparatory bodies, attaché(e)s and counsellors from Permanent Representations, as well as officials from EU institutions and agencies.
Description
This three-day seminar aims to help participants to identify, use and improve techniques to adequately manage the multilateral processes of negotiation at any stage of the European Union governance system. Efficient participation in these processes requires sufficiently mastering of the essential methodological, strategic, ‘protocolaire’, rhetorical and behavioural parameters imposed on representatives. The programme essentially transfers the technical knowledge as well as the politically correct tools to exert the right and efficient influence as a delegate holding a mandate.
Method
The method used is interactive and practical, combining theoretical aspects, empirical knowledge and a learning-by-doing approach by using two simulations of gatherings between national representatives in preparatory bodies – in the Council in this instance. The two simulation exercises (role plays) aim at placing the participants in classical multilateral situations of European decision-making processes. The role plays, together with the targeted debriefing sessions, will render the training an experimental laboratory, allowing participants to audit – and improve – their knowledge and practice of negotiation. Video recording and analysis will be used in order to highlight learning points and elaborate handy dos and don’ts in a targeted, practical and realistic manner. Participants will receive a special negotiation handbook, as well as all relevant technical and procedural official EU documents, in order to be appropriately prepared for the negotiations ahead of them.
Objectives
Each participant should leave the training with a set of techniques and negotiation skills to efficiently:
• craft a negotiation strategy;
• prepare for a plenary meeting;
• plan an intervention;
• apply the techniques to intervene efficiently, be constructive and command attention;
• use the rules of procedures;
• develop bargaining tools and alternative solutions to strike deals in stalemates; prepare problem-solving approaches;
• send the appropriate signals and concession-making patterns;
• identify and respond to the main tactics used in multilateral negotiations;
• socialise and share information: who are the targets and key players to watch?
• report to one’s capital/authorities in order to plan ahead?
Day One
The first day sketches out the level playing fields and the ground rules of EU negotiations before placing participants in a genuine negotiation situation allowing them to practice their knowledge and skills.
Introduction and sharing of the expectations of the participants
Workshop: Building a list of dos and don’ts
This session will allow participants to share their negotiating experience and views on ‘things to do and things to avoid doing’ in European negotiations. The objective of this session is to identify and better delimitate the challenges for the ‘European negotiator’.
The procedural level playing field of European negotiations
The objective of this session is to set the scene for the first simulation of European negotiations by briefly providing the panoramic and multidisciplinary knowledge of EU decision-making, which is indispensable for the negotiator going to ‘Brussels’. Attention will be paid to the essential procedural and institutional parameters of the decision-making process relevant to representatives. The session will present a ‘check list’ of the institutional and procedural elements to identify in a dossier that is subject to negotiation ‘in Brussels’.
Lunch
Simulation I: Dealing with a Commission Proposal (video recorded)
The objective of this exercise is to put the participants in a situation typical of European negotiations. On the basis of a Commission Proposal, issues to be addressed relate to definitions and objectives, as well as to the speed and scope of the approximation of national legislations. This negotiation takes place in a Council working party.
Dinner at a local restaurant
Day Two
The second day is dedicated specifically to the analysis of the simulation exercise and the video recording. It focuses on the dynamics of the procedures, the processes and the persons involved in and outside the room; before, during and after the plenary meeting. The aim of the debriefing sessions is to identify pointers and produce learning points allowing participants to efficiently cope with a variety of real-life negotiation situations.
Debriefing of Simulation I
Group discussion and Q&A session in which participants will be able to link the simulation and reality by expressing their views, interrogations and questions. Procedural interrogations in particular should be exhausted by this session.
Debriefing of Simulation I: video analysis
The video analysis should open eyes to facets of negotiations processes that normally remain unnoticed; it also allows to better laser beam the techniques, tool and skills at stake in order to translate them into concrete negotiation tools.
Lunch
Debriefing of Simulation I: EU negotiation techniques for real life
The objective of this session is to address the dos and don’ts in multilateral European processes of negotiation. There will be a focus on ways to impact a meeting and influence negotiations through appropriate techniques of multilateral communication and negotiation. Attention will also be given to approaches and techniques to be considered in order to break a deadlock and reach a compromise.
Day Three
The last day moves away from the previously tested traditional legislative and technical compromise-building processes, into negotiation situations where bargaining processes involve sensitive national positions and interests.
Simulation II: Managing bargaining processes
The objective of the second simulation is to stage and learn from a negotiation on multilateral burden sharing and collective commitments between EU Member States. The aim of this session is to simulate a facet of EU negotiations which has always existed, but which has also amplified with the successive enlargements.
Debriefing of Simulation II
The objective of this session is to discuss how to best approach negotiations when subject to pressure, political and domestic agenda constraints, specific stakes and economic interests. The session will present bargaining theory and the rules applicable to tactics useful to ensuring individual and mutual payoffs by combining assertiveness and diplomacy. It will further elaborate on available methods to report the information on the negotiation processes back to one’s capital/authority in order to secure a sufficient margin of manoeuvre and area of influence in negotiations.
Lunch
Final considerations for future negotiations
The objective of this session is to sum up the tools and techniques available for European negotiators to influence, with awareness and skills, the EU decision-shaping and decision-taking processes. These recommendations will be complemented by a video recording of an actual Council negotiation session presented as a closure to the seminar.
End of the seminar
Programme
The programme will commence on the first day at 09.00 and will finish on the third day at 16.00.
Course Venue
The course will take place in the Blue Conference Room (0.18) of the European Institute of Public Administration, O.L. Vrouweplein 22, NL-6211 HE Maastricht, tel.: +31 43 32 96 222, fax: +31 43 32 96 296.
Working language
The course will be conducted in English with simultaneous interpretation in French (please note that interpretation will be subject to a minimum number of participants requiring translation). Please indicate your language of preference on the registration form.
Fee
The participation fee is € 1325 and includes documentation, 3 lunches, 1 dinner and refreshments. Accommodation and travel costs are at the expense of the participants or their administration. EIPA offers its members a reduction of 10% of the registration fee. For details, please click here.
Hotel reservations
The European Institute of Public Administration will be pleased to make hotel reservations for you at a hotel in Maastricht. We have made a block booking at Hotel Beaumont**** (www.beaumont.nl), at the rate of € 101 p.p.p.n. (incl. breakfast and tourist tax). Should you wish to make use of this possibility, please indicate the dates of arrival and departure on the registration form. Payment is to be made directly and personally to the hotel on checking out. Please note that if you register after the closing date, hotel reservations cannot be guaranteed.
Meals
Meals will be served at the Institute’s restaurant and dinner in the evening will be at a restaurant in town. Should you require a special menu (e.g. vegetarian, diabetic), please inform the Programme Organiser so that this can be arranged.
Registration
Kindly complete the online registration form before the closing date.
Your name and address will be part of EIPA's database for our mailing purpose only. If you do not want to be included in our mailing database, please tick the box in the registration form.
Confirmation
Confirmation of registration will be forwarded to participants on receipt of the completed registration form.
Payment
Prior payment is a condition for participation. Please indicate the method of payment on the registration form. For cancellations received within 15 days before the activity begins, we will have to charge an administration fee of € 150 unless a replacement participant is found.
Cancellation policy
EIPA reserves the right to cancel the seminar up to 2 weeks before the starting date. EIPA accepts no responsibility for any costs incurred (travel, hotel, etc.). For EIPA's cancellation policy, please visit our website.
eipa.eu
Powered by