Challenge

The EU imposed onerous penalties on our client, the Republic of Bulgaria. €825 million of pre-accession funds were frozen. It was a response to its alleged failure to combat corruption, organized crime and misuse of EU funds. Funds worth up to €7 billion over the next six years were also at risk. The Bulgarian government turned to Alber & Geiger for help.

Strategy

Alber & Geiger’s multi-faceted approach involved sophisticated legal analysis calibrated through a dynamic, institution sensitive communications strategy. It incorporated practical considerations like staff changes in the Bulgarian government as well as larger semantic and structural reasons for misunderstandings.

Results

Alber & Geiger was able to restore trust and confidence between the European Commission and the Bulgarian government. The result was the unfreezing of the €500 million in EU funds and the de-jeopardizing of the rest of the €7 billion.

Challenge

Bulgarian MET Real Estate sought our help vis-à-vis EU state aid and environmental politics. MET planned a development located in an area protected by the EU Nature Directives, having obtained the construction permits through the land swapping laws, common in Bulgaria as in other former Communist countries. Alber & Geiger had to convince the European Commission that there was no illegal state aid in the aftermath of Bulgaria’s EU accession.

Strategy

Our methodology assimilated policy and law into a subtle and meticulously engineered lobbying strategy. It practically depictured to Commission’s experts that a resolution could be found which did not violate state aid law or inhibit Bulgaria’s legitimate development goals.

It used the length and breadth of EU policy fields to put the situation on a macro-European policy context. It relied on the socio-economic dynamics of transition in the Bulgarian property market, and subsumed this framework into consciousness of the European Commission’s policy.

Results

Ultimately we were able to get the Commission, the Bulgarian Government and MET Real Estate, to agree on a settlement that would benefit the internal market and the development needs of the Bulgarian tourism industry. We protected our client from a potentially non-empathetic knee-jerk reaction by the European Commission, which would have had wider implications on the economic health of the region.

Challenge

A US Fortune 500 chemical company approached Alber & Geiger seeking regulatory and advocacy support over a European Union proposal that would have classified Titanium Dioxide as a cat.2 suspected carcinogen by inhalation. Such a decision would have affected our client’s revenue and increased risk of similar regulatory measures in the other jurisdictions across the globe.

Strategy

With the experts opinion from the ECHA’s Risk Assessment Committee delivered to the European Commission, our team quickly embarked on a campaign aimed at highlighting the broader ramifications of classification on other EU policies and beyond Titanium Dioxide.

We pursued a strategy that put the spotlight on loss of consumer choice, impact on jobs and EU competitiveness as well as cost to downstream users. Alber & Geiger also broadened the issue to include political considerations and other players. On top of the European Commission, in particular DG Envi and DG Grow and the Member States’ Competent Authorities, we reached out to the Permanent Representations of the Member States as well as select Members of the European Parliament.

Results

Our advocacy helped thwart the original carcinogen classification that would have harmed our client. Through active engagement at the regulatory and political level, we helped find a suitable compromise for our client, which was then mirrored in the European Commission amended proposal.

Instead of outright carcinogen labelling on Titanium Dioxide, the European Commission changed its position by agreeing for classification to apply to Titanium Dioxide in powder form, only on the level of manufacture and without carcinogenicity labelling in the end products.