Find out your ranking in the ecosystem
The final episode of our webinar series on spheres of influence, this study looks at the European sphere, a universe often seen as complex, institutional and remote. Having explored the political, media, economic and lobbying bubbles, we wanted to understand how the power of influence is structured and expressed at European level.
What is the Social Impact Score (SIS)?
As a brief reminder, we created the Social Impact Score, an indicator that measures the influence of an individual or organisation on a scale of 0 to 100, across five ecosystems: political, media, economic, lobbying and European. This score makes it possible to compare concretely the weight of an actor in each of these universes, based on tangible data drawn from social media and interactions between communities.
The European ecosystem: a space of institutional influence
To analyse the European bubble, we built a panel of about 119,600 actors, drawing on our Follaw.sv monitoring platform.
This ecosystem includes:
- political actors
- interest representatives
- economic analysts
- journalists and specialist media
This mapping reveals a very dense but also fragmented ecosystem, organised by national blocs and language communities rather than by political ideology.
A Europe of influence that is still very compartmentalised
The analysis of interactions shows a strong centrality of Belgium, the geographical and symbolic heart of the European bubble. The Brussels community brings together most of the actors who keep the institutions, the media and the lobbies running.
Around it orbit several groupings:
- a Euro-Atlantic community, marked by the American presence;
- a French bubble, close to Belgium but relatively isolated, with a far-right sub-community (Le Pen, Orban, Trump, Musk, Farage);
- progressive and liberal communities, very connected to Renew Europe and pro-European media;
- an institutional core made up of the Commission, the Parliament, the ECB and international organisations;
- and finally, more sectoral communities such as environment and energy, as well as the Italian and Spanish blocs.
Overall, civil society has little visibility there.
The European bubble remains dominated by institutions and multinationals, able to fund large-scale campaigns and maintain a continuous presence. Citizen actors, for their part, struggle to emerge at this level.
European lobbies: between structure and disparity
European lobbies are on the whole better organised than their national equivalents, but not all sectors are equally well served.
The strongest are agriculture, health and technology, well connected to the institutions.
Energy forms a structured ecosystem, often linked to environmental issues.
Conversely, some sectors remain weak or scattered:
- finance and insurance lack visibility (Insurance Europe is absent from the panel);
- housing and real estate are very poorly represented;
- defence, though strategic, is still absorbed by aeronautics.
A country-by-country reading shows that agricultural issues are mainly defended at national level (FNSEA, Irish Farmers Association).
Germany dominates economic questions, while France remains active but confined within its linguistic borders.
Old-school social media
The European ecosystem remains very attached to traditional platforms.
X (formerly Twitter) is by far the most used: it concentrates almost all exchanges between decision-makers, journalists and lobbies.
LinkedIn comes next, favoured for professional and institutional relationships.
Instagram, surprisingly, has a good presence, notably because of American influence and its early adoption.
By contrast, new platforms such as Threads, Bluesky or TikTok are almost absent.
TikTok, in particular, potentially suffers from European distrust of China.
The result: an “old-school” ecosystem, very reluctant to experiment with new channels of expression.
The most influential figures
The ranking of the most followed personalities confirms that the power of influence remains concentrated in the hands of institutional leaders.
The top places are held by the Presidents of the Commission and of the Parliament, along with the Commissioners for economic portfolios.
Among the most influential figures:
- Maros Sefcovic, Commissioner for trade and economic security;
- Margrethe Vestager, known for her investigations into the tech giants;
- Mariya Gabriel, on AI and digital issues.
The factors of influence are clear: the post held, the visibility of the portfolio, seniority and above all the network, both physical and digital.
Pro-European political groups, such as Renew Europe, dominate the bubble. By contrast, the far right, more Eurosceptic, remains marginalised on European networks.
Lobbies, media and the geography of influence
The top of the most visible lobbies is dominated by think tanks (Bruegel, SEPs, Wilfried Martens Centre) and international NGOs (including Greenpeace). Human rights and environmental themes are strongly represented.
On the media side, Politico is by far the reference, well ahead of Contexte, which is more focused on a French-speaking audience. American media keep a dominant place in the circulation of European information.
Geographically, northern France stands out as a key area of influence, at the crossroads of Brussels, Paris and Strasbourg. The EU’s founding countries still dominate the space, while the United Kingdom retains a notable presence. The United States accounts for around 15% of total presence, far ahead of China, Russia or India, whose official influence remains marginal.
Business leaders and companies: a conspicuous absence
The analysis of the SBF 120 in the European bubble highlights a striking finding:
French and European business leaders are almost absent from this ecosystem.
Even the best-ranked, Alexandre Bompard (Carrefour), scores only 2 out of 100.
Its few points come mainly from its presence in the French bubble.
European CEOs do no better: only a few names stand out, such as Ilham Khadri (Solvay), Tim Cook (Apple) and Daniel Ek (Spotify).
The most influential companies come from tech (YouTube, Google) and energy.
Overall, business leaders prefer to let lobbies or trade federations represent them before the institutions.
Lessons
This study paints the portrait of an Europe of influence that is still very institutional, where dialogue is often vertical and where citizens’ voices struggle to emerge.
Several key lessons emerge:
- Dichotomy between national actors and the European bubble: the European ecosystem remains compartmentalised, with national actors seeking to influence the EU without being integrated, while the European bubble advocates dialogue yet remains closed.
- Domination by multinationals and institutions: unlike France, where NGOs and civil society upset established institutional balances (notably on TikTok), the EU remains dominated by multinationals and institutions with the financial means to run large-scale campaigns.
- Major sectors well represented but unbalanced: sectors such as agriculture, health and tech are well present, with highly influential European economic lobbies. By contrast, industry and transport lack structure. And just as a European defence is being built, the sector is still subsumed within aeronautics.
- Topics embodied to varying degrees at national level: agriculture is dominated by certain countries (France, Ireland), Germany dominates on the economy, and tech issues are not well defended by countries.
- The European bubble is structured nationally, not politically: it is hard to reach the left or the right through digital campaigns, as they are spread across several communities (except the far right).
- Networks to favour: X, Instagram and LinkedIn are the main networks, in an old-school ecosystem where the new platforms (TikTok, Bluesky) struggle to emerge.
- To be influential: seniority, portfolio, and physical and digital networking are essential (e.g. Ryan Heath of Politico).
- Little official influence from foreign countries: with the exception of the United States, foreign countries struggle to make themselves visible to the European bubble on social media. Their disinformation attempts may take place at national level, less so at European level.
- Business leaders do not capture the attention of the European ecosystem. That said, do they have the ambition and the need? The ingredients do not seem to be there to fight this battle.
In short, the European bubble still works “the old way”: a lot of offline, little digital, and great caution in public expression. To exist in this space, you need a network, time and resources - or you go through established intermediaries: media, think tanks or interest representatives.