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With the Treaty of Lisbon, which entered into force on 1 December 2009, the EU de facto became a state territory stretching from Portugal to Finland and from Ireland to Cyprus. The previous co-decision procedure was elevated to become the standard procedure ("ordinary legislative procedure"). For the players on the "European Union stage" - the EU member states, EU regions, companies, associations and organisations - this leads to the problem that the outcome of decision-making processes has become largely incalculable. The author, Klemens Joos, points out that, at the latest since the Treaty of Lisbon, successful lobbying in the complex decision-making system of the EU is much more the result of the intermesh of content competence (the four "classic instruments" of lobbying: corporate representative of-fices, associations, public affairs agencies, law firms) with process structure competence (i.e. the EU-wide maintenance of the required spatial, personnel and organisational capacities as well as strong networks across institutions, political groups and member states) on the part of an independent intermediary. One´s own concerns are only likely to be successful if the in-terests of politicians and the general public are taken into consideration (change in perspec-tive to the common interest perspective). If this perspective change is successful, process support competence is crucial to achieving the objective.

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Dr Klemens Joos studied business administration at Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) in Munich, where he obtained his doctorate on "Representing the Interests of German Companies vis-à-vis the Institutions of the European Union" in 1997. After working as a personal assistant to a Member of the European Parliament, he founded EUTOP International GmbH in 1990. Since then, EUTOP has concentrated on the structural and sustainable support of the work of the interest representations of private companies, associations and organisations at the institutions of the European Union and selected member states. Based in Munich, EUTOP International GmbH now has subsidiaries in Brussels, Frankfurt, Berlin, Vienna, Bu-dapest and Prague, further offices in Paris, Rome and London, as well as sales representa-tions in Beijing, Tokyo and New York. EUTOP is specialised in Process-oriented Structural Governmental Relations (PSGR©). Dr Klemens Joos heads the EUTOP Group as managing partner. His doctorate was followed by further publications on lobbying, which are available in German, English and Japanese. Since 2013, Dr Joos has been Visiting Lecturer at the Fac-ulty of Business Administration at the LMU Munich for the field of "Convincing Political Stakeholders".

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