The ongoing conversation regarding the need for the European Union to accelerate its decision-making, limit the use of vetoes, and strengthen its institutional framework is not a new development. However, a significant gap is emerging that is increasingly technological in nature. While EU institutions are actively experimenting with AI tools to manage their growing workloads, many national capitals are lagging behind in adopting similar solutions.
There is rarely any meaningful debate over whether individual EU Member States are keeping pace with the EU’s accelerating legislative speed or if they are truly able to reflect their national stances effectively.
Reports indicate that the EU Commission is considering deploying officials to Member State capitals to boost its local influence and policy awareness. Conversely, Member States are failing to do the same regarding their own representation in Brussels. While size is not the only factor—some smaller Member States remain effective despite leaner bureaucracies—most face a wide variety of issues stemming from an outdated approach to EU affairs.
This problem spans a lack of manpower, difficulty in hiring and retaining talent, poor coordination between Permanent Representations (PermReps) and national capitals, a lack of a horizontal approach to EU policy management at the ministerial level, and a failure to adopt new technological solutions when budgetary or political constraints make increasing headcount impossible.
Ultimately, this leaves some Member States acting as mere observers and reactors rather than active participants in the EU’s legislative process. For these countries, being proactive in shaping the EU's legislative agenda is entirely out of the question.
As the conversation on the Single Market and the EU moving toward a pragmatic federation becomes more relevant, Member States—especially smaller ones—should follow the best practices of more effective Member States and EU institutions to enhance their representation in EU policy matters. National government representatives currently serve on roughly 140 committees and working parties in Brussels, covering a wide variety of policy matters that affect their economies, industries, and citizens.
With the EU’s increasing legislative speed, methods that worked in the past may no longer be fit for the present or the future.
The exact size and remit of countries' Permanent Representations in Brussels are notoriously difficult to track, but a 2019 report by the Danish think tank Europa noted that staffing ranged from 69 to 200 representatives depending on the Member State. According to that report, Western European countries like Germany, France, Belgium, and Austria were leading with 150 to 200 employees. A middle group—including Romania (which was chairing the Council of the EU at that time), the UK, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, Czechia, Finland, and Ireland—had 103 to 147 employees.
A third group, consisting mostly of smaller or Eastern European Member States such as Lithuania, Portugal, Hungary, Slovakia, Luxembourg, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Cyprus, Slovenia, and Latvia, had only 69 to 89 employees, or two to three times less than their Western counterparts. While size does not equal quality, underrepresented countries often struggle to meaningfully impact EU affairs. This manpower deficit is most visible during their Council of the EU Presidencies, when hiring external talent is difficult and core staff are overstretched.
Policymakers’ agendas in democratic countries are naturally driven and influenced by their voters, who are represented by industry representatives, individual experts, thought leaders, and the non-governmental sector. However, when it comes to EU affairs in Member States with limited ecosystems, the connection between EU policy and various stakeholders is weak. As a result, policymakers rarely receive timely, constructive feedback when they need it most, forcing them to make decisions based solely on inter-institutional dialogue or limited interactions with a few proactive stakeholders.
Smaller Member States suffer the most in this regard. Their industries are smaller, domestic trade groups must often operate as big-tent organizations to survive, which limits their specialization.
Furthermore, the smaller media sector lacks the capacity to proactively and contextually cover EU affairs. Consequently, the quality of public debate on EU policy in smaller Member States is poor—delayed at best, non-existent at worst. Very frequently, the public discussion on EU legislation only begins during the transposition phase, a stage where changes are limited. The debate remains superficial, trapped between glossy official EU press releases and a defeatist, overly critical, and pessimistic approach.
Countries like Ireland have already replicated a more effective approach through open and transparent public consultation systems. While some may fear that the local public sector would be unable to manage diverging opinions, the traditional methods for public consultation used by most countries, such as roundtables and ad hoc meetings, are clearly no longer effective.
Creating new frameworks that allow all interested parties to publicly voice their views on EU matters would enhance transparency, increase policymaker accountability, build trust in both local and EU institutions, and drive overall engagement.
The argument that the bureaucracy is already too large is hard to counter, especially in countries with a more austere approach to government spending and public debt. However, EU affairs is not an area where governments should cut costs, especially now that the EU is moving toward a more integrated Single Market with harmonized rules and fewer Directives.
The available data on staff numbers within EU institutions alone should be a convincing enough argument for Ministries of Finance to understand that EU lawmaking is vast, complex, and requires sufficient investment to participate in constructively.
Simply allocating more money for staff or creating stakeholder consultation platforms are by no means silver bullets. Other challenges, such as poor horizontal coordination between ministries, the inability to retain institutional memory, and time constraints, can also be addressed from a technological perspective. This ranges from custom-made AI solutions—a great opportunity for European tech—to other means. By beginning to work on these tools, collecting relevant data, and outlining administrative structures, countries will naturally be pushed to rethink their current modus operandi on EU affairs.
Finally, the EU Commission's recent Communication on better regulation sets out plans to introduce new IT tools to improve lawmaking. The Commission reportedly wants to become AI-ready, while the Estonian government is prioritizing the application of AI at the highest political level. It appears that both EU institutions and some Member States have understood that if AI improves labor productivity and saves time in the private sector, it should be just as helpful in the public sector, whether at home or in Brussels.
