Why trilogues still challenge even experienced public affairs teams

By Paul Shotton, Advocacy Strategy - Advocacy Academy

I recently ran a workshop on EU trilogues, and what struck me most was not a lack of technical knowledge in the room, but the level of engagement. Even among experienced public affairs professionals, there is a strong appetite to better understand how trilogues really work, and how to engage with them effectively.

That interest is telling. Most practitioners know the formal rules of the ordinary legislative procedure. They know when trilogues happen, who participates, and why they matter. And yet, when a file enters trilogue, many teams experience a familiar shift: strategies that worked well in committee suddenly lose traction, access narrows, timelines compress, and decisions move faster and in less visible ways.

This is not simply a question of knowing more about the process. It is a strategic challenge that emerges precisely when pressure increases and room for manoeuvre decreases.

Three layers of trilogue complexity

One useful way to think about trilogues is as operating on three overlapping layers. The first is the formal layer: treaties, rules of procedure, mandates, and voting requirements. This framework is visible and relatively well understood. The second layer is the trilogue process itself. Although trilogues are formally informal, they have become highly codified over time, with established formats, routines, documents, and expectations.

The real difficulty lies in a third layer that sits beneath these two. This is the layer of informal norms, habits, and expectations that shape how mandates are interpreted, how flexibility is signalled, how pressure is applied or resisted, and how trade-offs are explored long before they appear in a document. Most advocacy challenges at trilogue stage arise here, not because teams misunderstand the rules, but because this layer is harder to read, harder to teach, and easier to underestimate.

The logic of advocacy changes

Trilogues fundamentally change the logic of advocacy. Earlier phases of the legislative process reward breadth. There is space to shape positions publicly, to build coalitions, to test arguments, and to keep options open. Trilogues reverse that logic. Influence shifts from shaping positions to shaping deals. Access concentrates around a small group of negotiators and support actors. Issues that once sat comfortably alongside each other are forced into direct trade-offs. Windows of opportunity are shorter, more fragmented, and often located before or between formal moments rather than during them.

This is where many strategies quietly break down. Teams continue to apply tools and behaviours that were effective earlier in the process. They push for additional ambition when the discussion has already moved to feasibility. They focus on visibility when relevance has become the limiting factor. By the time a compromise appears on the table, much of the political space has already been used.

Objectives need to be revisited

One of the most underestimated implications of this shift is the need to revisit objectives. In many campaigns, objectives are defined early, when political space is still relatively open. These objectives are then treated as fixed commitments rather than as strategic hypotheses. Once institutional mandates are adopted, however, what is realistically negotiable changes. Continuing to pursue objectives that no longer align with those mandates does not just reduce effectiveness; it can also erode credibility with negotiators who are operating under clear constraints.

Effective advocacy at trilogue stage therefore requires a deliberate reset. Teams need to decide which outcomes truly matter, which can be traded, and which are no longer worth investing political capital in. In practice, this is often the moment when advocacy shifts from maximising gains to protecting what is most critical.

Public affairs management comes under pressure

This is also the point where the quality of public affairs management becomes visible. Understanding the policy process and recognising when strategy should change is one thing. Being able to actually do it in time is another. Trilogues leave little room for improvisation. Teams that wait for documents to appear, that coordinate on the fly, or that rely on individual heroics tend to struggle — not because they misunderstand the politics, but because their setup is not built for rapid strategic adjustment.

Teams with more structured public affairs systems adapt more smoothly. They are clear on who owns the strategy reset, how priorities are reviewed, and how information flows internally. They narrow focus without losing alignment, and they support negotiators with inputs that are relevant to the stage of negotiation rather than noise.

Tools need to serve the process, not the other way around

This is also where the relationship between the policy process and internal tools becomes critical. Many teams have campaign plans, stakeholder maps, message frameworks, and tracking systems in place. The problem is rarely the absence of tools, but the way they are treated as static deliverables. As files move into trilogue, the purpose of these tools needs to change. Campaign plans need to be narrowed and reprioritised. Stakeholder maps need recalibration as access concentrates. Message frameworks need to become more disciplined, more political, and often simpler.

The four-column document is a good illustration of this. It shows the positions of the Commission, Parliament, and Council side by side, with a fourth column for the emerging compromise text. Most teams wait until these documents start circulating during trilogues. But the smarter approach is to build your own version earlier — ideally before trilogues even begin. Map out where each institution sits, assess the voting strength behind each mandate, and start thinking through where the likely trade-offs will fall. This is not about predicting the final text. It is about preparing yourself to recognise what is moving, what matters, and where your room for manoeuvre actually is once negotiations start.

That kind of preparation is the difference between reacting to developments and being ready for them. The policy process itself should define when tools are reviewed and updated. Mandate adoption and the launch of trilogues are not just political milestones; they are management triggers.

Trilogues reward readiness and restraint

The consistent lesson from trilogue work is that effectiveness at this stage has very little to do with doing more. Trilogues reward readiness: the ability to recognise when the advocacy logic has shifted, to recalibrate objectives without losing strategic intent, and to support negotiators with relevant, workable inputs. They also reward restraint. Knowing when not to intervene is often as important as knowing when to engage.

Understanding trilogues, in the end, is less about mastering procedure than about building public affairs systems that can adapt when the political space tightens. The question teams should be asking themselves is not just how they performed during the last trilogue, but what they could do differently before the next one starts. Build networks earlier. Set up tools and processes that are designed for pressure, not just for visibility. Treat preparation as part of the strategy, not as something that happens when time allows.

Trilogues do not wait for teams to be ready. The teams that influence them are the ones that were ready before they began.