Success Stories

Overview

A foreign country’s leading opposition political party sought to focus global attention on its upcoming national elections, where the likelihood of a free and fair campaign and poll was severely imperiled by the ruling party’s increasingly authoritarian leadership. The party sought a greater voice and decisive action by the international community—in particular the United States, European Union, and United Nations—to hold the government accountable for its abuse of authority, while highlighting the country’s deterioration of democracy, human rights, and civil liberties.

Challenges

A lack of understanding, awareness, and urgency among global leaders about the country’s declining state of democracy was severely limiting international calls for adherence to the rule of law and political freedom. Meanwhile, the ruling party had consolidated its rule, pushing constitutional reforms helping it remain in power—while targeting and harassing members of the opposition. Previous elections had been deeply marred by violence and irregularities, leading the party to boycott the previous election and leaving doubt that it would participate in the upcoming election. The fact that the country enjoyed cooperative relations—political, security, humanitarian, and trade—with key international and Western partners further constrained the policy space and appetite for focus on its crackdown on civil society, media, and critics.

Strategic Recommendations

Blue Star Strategies recommended a proactive public awareness campaign designed to demonstrably increase the party’s profile and voice in front of Western audiences which lacked accurate and timely information about the country’s declining state of democracy and assaults on free speech and political activity. We identified key messages that would resonate with targeted stakeholders, including leverage by the U.S. and the EU as the country’s key trading partners and foreign aid donors; the risk that declining space for political expression could sow violent and extremist elements; and the implications of the country’s autocratic rule on wider regional and geopolitical dynamics.

Program Highlights

Blue Star Strategies designed and implemented a sequential, strategic campaign targeting key stakeholders and influencers in the United States and European Union. We developed, educated, and empowered a cadre of champions in the U.S. Congress and State Department, European Commission and Parliament, UN, and among think tanks, policy institutions, and human rights watchdog organizations—keeping them regularly informed of on-the-ground developments through direct engagement, written briefings, and electronic updates. We coordinated and arranged successive delegation visits by senior party representatives for direct engagement with interlocutors in Washington, DC and Brussels—and arranged high level roundtable discussions for party leaders to share their story and vision at policy institutions such as the Atlantic Council, among others. Our early engagement with civil society set the stage for a series of high profile public reports published by Human Rights Watch highlighting the country’s authoritarian decent. We placed numerous op-eds in major news outlets, leading to an official briefing in the U.S. Congress at the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, which culminated in a bipartisan Congressional and EU Resolution condemning the country’s democratic abuses and calling for a free and fair election.

Our continuous pressure ultimately yielded official statements by the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. Department of State, EU Parliament, and UN expressing serious concerns over unsafe and undemocratic polling environments. A bipartisan letter was then sent by the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs to the Secretary of State calling for U.S. Administration action to protect democracy in the country. Most importantly, a personal letter was sent by the U.S. president to the country’s ruling prime minister expressing dissatisfaction with the conduct of the elections.

Results

Our efforts resulted in dramatically increased Western attention focusing on the country and its flawed democracy and elections—through both private communications and public condemnations. The opposition party now enjoys direct and regular access and open lines of communication with a wider array of champions for democracy in the country—setting the stage for greater international scrutiny and oversight of relations with the country and for holding the government accountable for adherence to democratic principles and the rule of law.

Overview

In 2014, the United States and Cuba entered into a new era of bilateral relations aimed at ending a 54-year stretch of hostilities. In this context, major U.S. corporations are taking advantage of business opportunities resulting from revised U.S. regulations, which enable the export and sale of certain U.S. products. Specifically, a U.S. pharmaceutical company sought our support and guidance in exploring the opportunity to license and sell its medicines, medical supplies, and equipment in Cuba, which were now exempted from U.S. trade restrictions but required a special license from the U.S. Department of Commerce. To better explore this opportunity, Blue Star Strategies organized an information seeking mission to Havana ensuring it was planned in strict compliance with U.S. rules and guidelines for trade and travel with Cuba.

Challenges

While the mission was within the bounds of U.S. law, significant challenges arose due to the complexities of business travel to Cuba under the new bilateral relationship. These included the need to ensure that the mission would be fully compliant with both U.S. law and Cuban regulations, including all necessary business visas for meetings in Havana with relevant government officials.

Strategic Recommendations

Blue Star Strategies’ recommendations focused on the need to engage strategically with the U.S. government, including the Departments of Commerce, State, and Treasury as well as with the Cuban Embassy to ensure that the mission went as planned and that its scope stayed within the boundaries set by U.S. law. Early, careful planning and attention to detail were critical to ensuring that the appropriate visas and meeting agenda in Havana were successful, as was frequent coordination and communication with the Cuban Embassy in Washington.

Program Highlights

Blue Star Strategies identified meeting targets and coordinated an agenda with relevant healthcare and pharmaceutical agencies in Cuba. In the country’s government-owned and controlled healthcare sector, this engagement was critical to the success of the mission and to ensuring that the meetings were attended and well-received by senior Cuban decision-makers and agencies. The mission also afforded Blue Star Strategies the opportunity to observe the significant need for U.S. products and investment in the healthcare and pharmaceuticals arena in Cuba as well as in other sectors such as tourism and hospitality, infrastructure, telecommunications, and agriculture.

Results

The information seeking mission helped the client to better understand the Cuban market and how its healthcare system operates as well as the U.S. licensing requirements to operate in the country. The mission enabled the client to develop strong contacts with government decision-makers in Cuba who manage the healthcare industry. As a result, the client came away with the necessary information to begin initiating a market entry plan in Cuba.

Overview

An Eastern European country that had regained independence from the Soviet Union in 1999—and thereafter joined the EU, NATO, and the euro area—sought to gain accession as a member state to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the intergovernmental economic body founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade. With OECD membership correlating to high democratic and economic achievement, the organization’s rigorous accession process required wide-ranging structural reforms that promised significant economic, investment, social well-being, and good governance benefits to the country, further consolidating its integration into Western and international institutions.

Challenges

While the country had made important progress on key OECD standards and best practices such as in the areas of environment, economic policy, and trade, significant challenges remained that were identified by the OECD, including improving corporate governance of state-owned enterprises and complying with requirements of the OECD’s anti-bribery convention. To address these challenges, the country’s political leadership and business community sought our firm’s support in developing an effective strategy to help build domestic and international support to implement the necessary reforms required for its OECD accession.

Strategic Recommendations

From our experience, Blue Star Strategies knew that an effective approach to securing an invitation to join the OECD would require bringing the country’s political leadership together with its business community. To that end, Blue Star Strategies created a comprehensive engagement and communications strategy to align the public and private sectors in support of this goal. Blue Star Strategies also understood that public opinion was a valuable tool in raising support for OECD membership and recommended a media strategy to reach the country’s public to explain how OECD membership could improve the economic prospects of its citizens.

Program Elements

Working with a former high-level OECD official, Blue Star Strategies consulted officials in the government and the OECD to gather reliable intelligence on the obstacles to the country’s accession. Blue Star turned this intelligence into an actionable plan to increase the likelihood of accession. We began by facilitating high-level meetings between business and government leaders to educate key leaders on OECD accession and to ensure that both groups were working in tandem to address outstanding issues.

Blue Star Strategies also engaged with local partner institutions on-the-ground in the country to help shape the public debate on OECD membership, including placing op-eds and interviews in major media outlets. Using our senior-level connections and deep in-country experience, Blue Star Strategies also arranged meetings between business and government leaders to ensure strategic alignment and coordinated efforts to meet the demands of OECD membership.

Results

Blue Star Strategies' approach of engaging both the public and private sector was successful in enabling the country to overcome its obstacles and to enter the OECD. The OECD Council invited the country to join the organization by a unanimous vote. This decision paved the way for an important milestone in the country’s post-Soviet development and its integration into the European community and Western democracies.

Overview

A U.S.-based international nonprofit organization—well-known in Sub-Saharan Africa but seeking greater visibility domestically—engaged Blue Star Strategies to help expand its connections within the U.S. foreign policy establishment and international funding and development communities. For decades, the organization had provided workforce development services to at-risk populations across Sub-Saharan Africa. The group specifically aimed to increase funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), as well as to diversify its programming to become more eligible for funding from private sector donors and foundations.

Challenges

The organization ought our firm’s guidance to help source funding from diverse parties and with introductions to a variety of stakeholder, including: the U.S. Government; multilateral organizations such as the International Labour Organization, International Finance Corporation, and the World Bank; Washington DC-based think tanks and public policy institutions; African embassies; foundations; and potential private sector donors. Because the majority of the group's contacts were in Africa, Blue Star Strategies helped it break new ground in the United States, including support for its grant applications and desired collateral and to help differentiate it from others working in the region and seeking access to similar funding sources.

Strategic Recommendation

Blue Star Strategies provided the organization with strategic counsel to expand its network, support new funding sources, and identify and facilitate targeted introductions in Washington DC. We enabled the client to apply for new funding, form connections they had not previously considered, and assisted it with fine-tuning its message and materials to attract new grantors and aligned itself better with current funding priorities.

Program Elements

Our approach focused on identifying strategic opportunities for the client and providing guidance from start-to-finish, including introductions, grant preparation, presentation, and application, and providing information and analysis on potential grantors. We also facilitated introductions to persons who could impact grantor decision-making and assisted with the client’s board outreach and cultivation.

Results

In addition to expanding its visibility and network of contacts, Blue Star Strategies successfully facilitated multi-year funding from a major U.S.-based multinational retailer to offer new training programs in Ghana, Nigeria, and Kenya. Additionally, we were able to ensure that one of the client’s programs was endorsed by a leading foundation. Through our extensive and persistent efforts, the nonprofit organization also became eligible to receive future U.S. government grants from across the breadth of relevant Executive branch agencies. 

Overview

News outlets and journalists in a prominent Latin American nation were facing a deteriorating environment of freedom of expression. Not only was the press subject to intimidation and financial pressure over its editorial independence, but it faced an international community that was largely unaware of its plight. Blue Star Strategies developed a comprehensive strategy to educate policymakers in the U.S. government, opinion leaders in the American press, and key decision makers in the international community regarding this collapse of press freedoms.

Challenges

The first obstacle we needed to overcome in effectively advocating for press freedom was the apathy of policymakers and media figures whose attention was not focused on Latin America. Secondly, an active campaign of misinformation flowed from the government in question, which needed to be countered by an energetic campaign to bring the true facts to light. Finally, ideological opponents of press freedom in the international community were blocking any efforts to raise the issue in multilateral forums.

Strategic Recommendations

Blue Star Strategies created a multilevel strategy on the premise that any successful advocacy for press freedom would be based on raising awareness and exerting pressure through the international community. We developed a compelling narrative and leveraged it through media and opinion leaders. We then mobilized support among natural allies of freedom of expression in the U.S. Congress, State Department, and press freedom organizations in the United States and internationally. Finally, this raised profile allowed for the issue to be effectively raised in the forums of international diplomacy, including regional multilateral organizations and summits and in the realm of bilateral relations.

Program Highlights

Blue Star Strategies' efforts succeeded in dramatically raising the profile of this issue among the international community. Major news outlets such as The Washington Post, Associated Press, and POLITICO turned the attention of their news and opinion sections to the situation. The Washington policy elite was engaged through high profile events bringing together press representatives and U.S. Senators. As a result of this public exposure, the issue of freedom of expression became an issue bilateral relations between the U.S. and the government in question as well as in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States (OAS).

Results

As a result of the persuasive narrative that linked the press group's tribulations with the natural concern of the U.S. for democracy and human rights, representatives of both the legislative and executive branches of the U.S. government decided to escalate pressure, both publicly and privately, on the government in question, and introduce press freedoms as a sticking point in diplomatic relations.

Overview

A country's leading hydrocarbons company had deep expertise in exploration, production, refining, and marketing. The company was also the country's main investor, its second largest exporter, and—with more than 30,000 employees—one of its top employers. The United States, however, had recently decided not to renew the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) trade program that allowed the country's firms increased access to the U.S. market.

Challenges

As part of a coalition representing the country's business community, the company was facing a U.S. government—in particular the Congress—that was doubtful of the benefits of continuing with the existing trade preferences for the country. Any strategy to maintain those preferences needed to center on communicating a persuasive narrative to reluctant policymakers, opinion leaders, and other decision makers in Washington, in order to change the political calculus regarding bilateral relations with the country.

Strategic Recommendations

Blue Star Strategies' experienced team developed a proactive message to drive a government relations strategy in support of the company and to represent its interests and the interests of its corporate coalition. This message focused on three primary areas. First, on the economic impact of GSP and its benefits for U.S. consumers. Secondly, on the U.S. bilateral relationship with the country and the impact of the GSP deliberations on this relationship. And third, on the importance of continuing to support the country's development and poverty alleviation. These messages were tailored to engage the relevant decision makers at the U.S. Trade Representative's office, the Departments of State and Treasury, Congress, and public policy and media institutions.

Program Highlights

Blue Star Strategies focused on providing strategic positioning for the company and its coalition, which brought together several industry leaders affected by the GSP benefits. By defining a powerful "group of leaders" message, Blue Star Strategies positioned the company so that it could play a much more influential role in the process. The strategy also utilized energetic outreach to the press, including reporters and opinion writers at The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, International Herald Tribune, Miami Herald, Bloomberg, and Reuters, among others.

Results

Blue Star Strategies' efforts ultimately resulted in the renewal of GSP benefits for the country. By collaborating closely with the company and the business coalition, Blue Star Strategies worked to successfully illustrate the importance of the United States' bilateral and commercial partnerships, and definitively changed political sentiment within the U.S. Government.

Overview

A political party from an Eastern European country that had not been in government for a decade feared that upcoming parliamentary elections would favor the two largest parties, making their platform and leadership potentially irrelevant. The majority of local media was being controlled by the larger parties which made it almost impossible for an alternate voice to be heard. They feared that in this climate it would be too easy for one of the larger parties to manipulate the electoral process and threaten the country’s reputation as a regional leader that embodied Western democratic values.

Challenges

Engaging an international democracy community that did not view this country as a priority, and establishing the leader of the party as an important and respected voice in the future of the country and the region.

Strategic Recommendations

Blue Star Strategies created a plan to raise the profile of the coming election by placing it in the context of the countries recent NATO accession, and EU aspirations. At the same time, we worked to raise the profile of the party and its main candidate by highlighting their commitment to democracy and transparency. In essence, the party became the champion of this message.

Program Highlights

This program required complex coordination between many moving parts in Washington, New York, Brussels, Vienna, and the country’s capital. The first step was an in-depth messaging session where our team worked closely with the political party’s communications team to identify key strategic targets and themes that would resonate with those targets and to craft both the messages as well as the vehicles to deliver these messages.

In this context, the firm facilitated a visit of the party’s leadership to Washington, DC and arranged speaking engagements at major think tanks, high-level meetings with U.S. government officials in both the Executive and Legislative branches, roundtable discussions with the leadership of major democracy NGOs, and press events with both leading U.S. and European media organizations.

To build on the momentum of this visit, Blue Star Strategies worked in Brussels to convey messages to the European Commission on Enlargement, European Parliament, and NATO. In addition, we worked in Vienna to convey messages to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and its member-state embassies as well as in the country’s capital to ensure that the waves of support going through the international community were also felt by the electorate.

In Washington, we continued to work with the U.S. government, think tanks, NGOs, and the media to ensure that none could ignore the upcoming elections or the candidates put forward by our client.

Results

The two major results were (1) key officials from around the world began to pay attention to the election, and (2) as a direct result our client received many more votes on Election Day. With this margin they were then able to leverage his success into an influential role in the new government.

Specifically, our outreach had several tangible results:

• Three U.S. Members of Congress and a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State flew to the country after our client’s visit to observe the country’s preparations for the elections.
• The U.S. Senate passed a resolution acknowledging the challenges facing the election, and the U.S. Helsinki commission held a briefing to discuss the situation.
• The Secretary General of NATO visited the country in the lead up to the election.
• The OSCE pre-election reports began to reflect our client's specific concerns.
• Our client’s leading candidate was featured in major publicans such as The New York Times, Agence France Presse, Associated Press, The Tribune (UK), and EUObserver.

In The New York Times, our client’s leading candidate was identified before the election as a “King Maker.” True to this statement, when the government was formed, he became the sole Deputy Prime Minister, and his party was given three powerful ministries.

Overview

An association of banks from Northern Europe sought to enhance its reputation and to correct misperceptions within the U.S. about its country's financial services sector. It also sought to improve its technical capacity for financial monitoring in order to expand its relationships with international financial institutions. The country's emergence as a regional financial hub made it vital to pursue proactive efforts to secure its international financial standing.

Challenges

As one of the country's leading banks sought a loan guarantee from the U.S. Export-Import Bank, Blue Star Strategies, though its communication with the U.S. Department of Treasury and other key regulatory agencies, uncovered a broader issue. Specifically, the inadequate monitoring of the transactions of some of the bank's eastern neighbors was posing a threat to the country's banking sector as a whole by jeopardizing its status as a secure international banking hub. Two main challenges stood in the way of remedying the situation: first, the lack of robust relationships and engagements between the country's public and private institutions and their counterparts in Washington; and second, Washington's lack of knowledge and support of the country's progress—political, economic, and financial—since its independence from the USSR.

Strategic Recommendations

Blue Star Strategies developed an engagement strategy to strengthen the bilateral working relationship between the country's banking industry and decision makers in Washington, including Congress, the executive branch, international financial institutions, and the private sector. This strategy centered on the implementation of state-of-the-art financial monitoring and compliance standards, including anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML-CTF) protocols in partnership with these Washington decision makers. The end goal of the strategy was the construction of a completely robust, transparent banking industry with the recognition and cooperation of U.S. officials and the U.S. financial system.

Program Elements

Blue Star Strategies' program led to long term partnerships with key international financial institutions, U.S. banking associations, and leadership in Washington. Based on these partnerships, Blue Star Strategies facilitated substantive engagements between the country's banking industry and financial regulators and their U.S. counterparts in order to strengthen AML/CTF procedures. These partnerships between groups such as the American Bankers Association, major banks such as HSBC and JP Morgan, and the U.S. Treasury Department were developed through a series of working sessions, seminars, conferences, and private meetings where stakeholders gathered to discuss policy issues, resolve regulatory concerns, and enhance mutual understanding of financial best practices.

Results

Blue Star Strategies' approach was successful in changing the reputation of the country's banking sector. The substantive programmatic aspects of the strengthened bilateral relationship remain in force, and the network of public and private stakeholders has been sustained. Blue Star Strategies was also able to respond to new challenges as they arose, including anticipating inaccurate language in draft legislation and proactively working with Congressional leadership to develop alternative language that would not falsely label the country vis-à-vis the global financial system.

Overview

An international multilateral organization sought to enhance its profile in Washington as well as throughout the United States more broadly. Although the organization has been on the international stage for more than a century and impacts economies throughout the world, there had been little knowledge of the organization within the U.S., and less interest in engagement.

Challenges

In addition to the challenge of communicating effectively in a policy community crowded with voices, it had become clear that the organization's area of focus was not a priority for either the new administration or for Congress. Because its vision for the global economy was not viewed as relevant, Blue Star Strategies' mission was to convince a new administration and a new Congress otherwise, and to engage them on specific policy areas.

Strategic Recommendations

Blue Star Strategies implemented an engagement strategy with the goal of creating a dialogue centered around the organization's global economic relevance. The first step in this strategy has been to target public policy institutions and non-governmental organizations in order to find areas of common ground. Once significant traction on matters of global economic public policy had been achieved, we leveraged it in Congress for an expansive outreach effort on both sides of the aisle. The key to the effective implementation of these recommendations was the organization's steady leadership—its strategic patience allowed the plan to unfold and build upon itself each year, and the organization began to gain momentum among Washington's economic elite opinion leaders and decision-makers.

Program Highlights

Highlights of our strategy included the U.S. government's agreement to fund several poverty alleviation programs, allocating millions of dollars to help eradicate child labor and the trafficking of children. In addition, the U.S. State Department agreed to accept the organization's more expansive understanding of labor rights and protections at work. The organization went on to play a pivotal role in the G-20 process, providing critical analysis on labor trends and best practices regarding employment, worker training, and job creation.

Results

Having laid a foundation in the lead up to the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the organization was perfectly positioned to provide its technical expertise and policy advice to a new administration beginning in 2009. In the wake of the new political climate brought on by that election, the network of supporters built up over the years called on our client for its leadership. The organization's profile was at its height, its reputation had been rebuilt, and its essential role in international economics was reaffirmed with a seat at the G-20 table.

Overview

A global export company sought to achieve the U.S. Congress' approval to extend trade preferences legislation for imports originating in its home country in Latin America. Blue Star Strategies developed a dual communications and legislative strategy to educate the U.S. government and Congress, including policymakers in the Departments of State, Treasury, and Commerce, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, National Economic Council, and National Security Council regarding the benefits of a trade preferences extension.

Challenges

Largely as a result of a strained bilateral relationship, the U.S. government was not initially supportive of extending the Trade Preference Act with this particular country. Members of Congress questioned whether the Act should be extended, and many who had previously backed it withdrew their support. Adding to the pressure was the fact that without an extension, our client would have to shed thousands of jobs in a country where unemployment was skyrocketing.

Strategic Recommendations

In an effort to change this adverse momentum, Blue Star Strategies developed a strategy to engage the U.S. Executive branch, Congress on both sides of the aisle, and leading public policy and nongovernmental organizations in Washington, DC. Our strategy built on the client's compelling story: the business employed thousands of workers, it fed into the growth of hundreds of other small enterprises, and it was one of its country's largest taxpayers. To disseminate this story to all the relevant stakeholders and decision makers, the Blue Star Strategies team organized several forums in the Washington, DC policy community. Further, we brought the company's CEO to Washington every month and organized Congressional meetings in order to communicate the urgency of the company's position.

Program Highlights

Once we had laid the groundwork through a robust outreach strategy, our client was invited to serve as a key witness providing official testimony at hearings before the Senate Committee on Finance, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and International Trade Administration. Additionally, our client's final presentation before the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative's (USTR) evaluation panel was a key component in the Executive branch's overall assessment of the trade preference regime and its subsequent recommendation to extend the legislation. Finally, we were able to encourage a key Subcommittee Chair to visit one of the countries that benefited from the trade preference and to speak at our client's factory.

Results

A compelling story combined with the successful efforts of Blue Star Strategies to execute a multi-level government relations campaign led the U.S. Congress to approve the trade preference extension by a wide margin in both the House and Senate. In the end, Blue Star Strategies advocated for the trade preference extension for three consecutive years -- and achieved an extension each year in which we were engaged.

Overview

A former Soviet republic in Eastern Europe sought to enhance its bilateral relationship with the United States and to advance its goal of greater integration with the West. Given that a new U.S. president and Congress took office in 2009, it was necessary for the country's leadership to reintroduce and re-position itself with Washington, primarily by presenting itself as a committed ally of the U.S. and a defender of democracy, both domestically and throughout the region.

Challenges

With intense competition for the limited attention of U.S. policymakers, the first challenge was developing and pursuing a constructive substantive agenda that would sustain their focus. Secondly, in contrast to the exceptional rapport developed during the outgoing administration, the newly-elected Obama Administration brought a new approach, defined by a more pragmatically realist philosophy and an intention of pressing the "reset button" on relations with Russia. The latter, in particular, threatened to complicate U.S. relations with the former Soviet republic, given Russia's discomfort over NATO expansion.

Strategic Recommendations

In order to overcome these challenges, Blue Star Strategies developed a strategy to leverage support among the U.S. policy elite as well as public opinion for an enhanced bilateral relationship. Two primary strategic recommendations guided our approach: to work with the U.S. government to identify fruitful areas of mutual interest on which to focus engagement; and to establish a stand-alone framework for a new bilateral relationship with the U.S. to be based on a number of areas of substantive engagement.

Program Elements

With our deep ties to the U.S. Administration, Blue Star Strategies implemented a multi-track outreach program targeted towards key decision makers in the Executive, Congress, and among leading opinion leaders in order to promote a robust bilateral relationship. This outreach included Congressional meetings and hearings; high level bilateral engagements between the leadership of the two countries in order to develop a substantive agenda; a media strategy that included publications in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal; and support for an ongoing program of roundtable discussions and events in collaboration with prominent think tanks and leading scholars.

Results

Blue Star Strategies' efforts resulted in a number of critical advancements in the bilateral relationship. U.S. officials better understood the importance of a closer bilateral relationship at the highest levels and Members of Congress publicly supported this relationship, clearly stating that the U.S.-Russia "reset" must not be allowed to occur at the expense of such important alliances. A series of high level bilateral visits demonstrated the mutual commitment to an improved relationship, including at the vice presidential and Ministerial levels, as did the inauguration of a newly created bilateral commission in Washington, DC.

Overview

A coalition of eight Central and Eastern European countries (Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia), each a strong ally of the United States, sought legislation that would allow for the granting of visa-free status for their citizens to travel to the United States.

Challenges

Expansion of the visa waiver program faced opponents at multiple levels and branches of the U.S. government. In particular, many Members of Congress categorically opposed the waiver program as a matter of principle, citing national security considerations.

Strategic Recommendations

To meet these challenges, Blue Star Strategies developed and implemented a comprehensive, multi-track strategy to educate key U.S. policymakers about the importance of the visa waiver program and the need to reform it in a manner consistent with the U.S. and Europe's common security and economic goals. Communicating the importance of including U.S. allies in Central and Eastern Europe, many of whom were EU and NATO members, was central to this strategy.

Program Highlights

Blue Star Strategies worked closely with the White House, Departments of State and Homeland Security, and both houses of Congress to rally supporters—and neutralize opponents—of visa waiver modernization and expansion. We also engaged key allies in business, diaspora community organizations, think tanks and public policy institutions, academia, and prominent editorial boards.

Blue Star Strategies facilitated this effort through written and in-person engagement with members of the coalition, including the ministers, Ambassadors, and embassy staff of partner countries as well as key Members of Congress and their staff. We organized Congressional hearings that focused on reforming the program. We also developed successive, iterative round-table discussions hosted by area think tanks, and facilitated opinion pieces in The Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and others.

Results

As a result of these efforts, combined with strong bipartisan leadership, the U.S. Congress ultimately passed—and the President signed—legislation that set forth a path to visa-free status for countries that make substantial improvements in their security capacity. This was the central substantive item of the coalition's strategic message.

The President announced that the nations that met the criteria for admission—as well as others on track for admission—would be included in the waiver program. Currently, each of the countries of the Coalition for Visa Equity has either joined the program or has begun the process towards full participation.