To access the latest research and resources on the COVID-19 pandemic, please visit APCO's Coronavirus Hub.

We’re Spending More Time Online: What Does That Mean for Digital Advocacy?

APCO's Rachael Siefert, senior director and North America digital strategy practice lead, shares her insights on the future of advocacy and campaigning to maximize meaningful impact:

APCO colleagues are sharing on-the-ground insights and analysis on the impact of COVID-19 in markets around the world. Today’s dispatch from APCO’s Brussels office looks at the coordinated efforts of EU institutions to respond and develop a coordinated recovery plan to emerge from the crisis.

With new leadership in the European Commission, Parliament and Central Bank, and an ambitious work program, 2020 was supposed to be a year of renewal and success for the European Union. Then, the coronavirus came, and with it, the difficulties in coordinating responses across the bloc. The emblematic Schengen area was the first to feel the effects, as travel restrictions and border closures were swiftly implemented. Then came tensions between national capitals over personal protective equipment, which dominated the daily political agenda. As public health has always been a competence of the bloc’s member states, rather than the Union, critics were quick to raise questions about European solidarity, especially between northern and southern countries who started to turn on each other on issues such as funding and debt mutualization.

EU institutions are complex in structure and ill-suited to the fast decision-making required to respond to a crisis. There is, however, an overall agreement that the EU will be essential in responding to the consequences of the coronavirus and that this response will depend on both coordination and solidarity. Following tough negotiations, EU leaders have agreed on an overarching common approach to COVID-19 structured around limiting the spread of the virus, ensuring the provision of medical equipment, boosting research for treatments and vaccines, and, most importantly, supporting the economy. With the EU economy predicted to experience a recession of historic proportions this year, plans to slowly re-open most European economies are playing out at the national level. Having secured the use of the EU’s Stability Mechanism to provide member states with fresh emergency funds, the EU Commission now looks to upcoming negotiations on what Commission President Ursula von der Leyen calls an “EU Marshall Plan to counter COVID-19:” an updated budget for 2021-2027 and an ambitious €1 trillion investment package, to begin May 13. Draft documents show that the green transition and digital transformation, as well as ambitious changes in healthcare, will be critical in these discussions, offering opportunities for any stakeholder seeking to align their activities with the next chapter of the EU’s integration. As things stand, the EU recovery plan will also aim to strengthen the EU’s “strategic autonomy,” with some discussion about the importance of moving key supply chains back to Europe.

“While this virus may be a natural phenomenon, the crisis it both reveals and exacerbates is manmade. This moment must be a wake-up call and a turning point in the way we prevent and address calamities like this in the future.”

     - Dr. Rajiv J. Shah, President of The Rockefeller Foundation


“COVID-19 is putting us all to the test and it is a test we are all rising to. This is a great shared project by the peoples of the world with a clear purpose: to find that vaccine for COVID-19. A safe vaccine, available to all, affordable to all.”

      - Scott Morrison, Prime Minister of Australia