The purpose of this report is to address the topic of whether and to what extent the TSO community in Brussels might help TSOs in member states to overcome barriers and hurdles which restrict their potentials. It furthermore investigates whether the European community of TSOs could have positioned itself further within Brussels’ policy machinery.

Findings reveal a complex but not thoroughly optimistic picture of the capacities of TSOs in Brussels to work on behalf of their constituencies in the member states. The report starts with outlining the trajectories of three legal initiatives which aimed at creating pan-European legal stipulations for associations, foundations and co-operatives but failed. To some extent there is a TSO policy policy community operating in Brussels, but it seems to be of limited influence. TSOs from Eastern Europe and also from the South are not as equally represented as those coming from the “big member states”, the UK, Germany or France. This means that “newcomers” as well as representatives from social movements are having a difficult time in Brussels when they try to make themselves heard. On the whole, TSOs operating at EU-policy level seem to be far from a position of being able to significantly influence the agenda or even addressing major TSO-related topics.