In-depth analysis of corporate lobbying in Brussels.
Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) is a research and campaign group working to expose and challenge the privileged access and influence enjoyed by corporations and their lobby groups in EU policy making.
Cross-posted from Corporate Europe Observatory
New analysis by Corporate Europe Observatory and LobbyControl, pulled from our online database LobbyFacts, gives us a glimpse of the lobby spending firepower of the corporate sector in Brussels. The 162 corporations and trade associations declaring over €1 million annual expenditure on EU lobbying collectively spend at least €343 million a year. That’s 13 per cent more than this time last year, and €86 million more since 2020, an increase of one third over the past 5 years. [See data.] Moreover, these numbers are likely to be substantial under-estimates: the true total of all corporate spending on EU lobbying will be significantly higher. All data is correct as of 8 February 2025.
The highest-declaring sectors are Big Tech (including Meta, Microsoft); Banking & Finance(including Association for Financial Markets in Europe, European Banking Federation); Energy(including FuelsEurope, Shell); Chemicals and Agribusiness (including European Chemical Industry Council, Bayer); the cross-sector trade associations (including BusinessEurope, Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie); and Pharma (including European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations, Novartis). As explained below this league table reflects recent lobby battles and trends.
Corporate lobbying pays off
These huge sums for EU lobbying by the top declaring corporate interests are clearly paying off, considering the accelerating pro-business agenda of the second von der Leyen Commission. Almost a year to the day since many dirty industries presented their policy demands in person to President Ursula von der Leyen via the Antwerp Declaration, this week (26 February) she will return to Antwerp to tell industry how she will deliver on its agenda. The so-called Clean Industrial Deal looks set to deliver corporate welfare and false climate solutions, while ignoring the imperative to tackle environmental pollution and deliver on social justice. Meanwhile relentless corporate lobbying has already secured the Competitiveness Compass, a sweeping deregulation agenda which puts so-called ‘corporate competitiveness’ as the Commission’s overarching goal. In reality this will be a bonfire of regulations made at the expense of democracy and social and environmental protections.
It is ironic that in recent months some media and the political right have been totally preoccupied with the non-story of €15 million received by green NGOs from the EU’s LIFE funding programme – which covers all sorts of civil society activities – while under their noses, the biggest corporate lobbies have spent at least €343 million a year on EU lobbying, including a €41 million increase just in the past year. Sidenote Indeed, as detailed in our briefing, we consider that a number of corporate interests may well be under-reporting their lobby declarations. While these sums and activities are not directly comparable, it is extremely concerning that the EU institutions are so responsive to industry lobby demands, while at the same time many politicians are seeking to restrict civil society space and engagement in Brussels and across Europe. This should give all reasonable decision-makers serious pause for thought.
As LobbyControl pointed out in its EU Lobby Report 2024 corporate lobbyists use numerous persuasion techniques ranging from face-to-face meetings and commissioned studies, to covert influencing through front groups and micro-targeted advertising. They recruit former politicians with valuable contacts via the ‘revolving door’. Their vast resources and nuanced strategies raise concerns about the EU institutions’ ability to resist undue influence. That’s why the EU institutions need to rethink their lobby rules.
Time to tackle regulatory capture
It’s clear that EU decision-making faces a real risk of regulatory capture, and there are next to no effective protections in place. This analysis reinforces the case for lobby firewalls to protect public decision-making. The EU institutions are already committed to protect its decision-making from tobacco lobby influence but this is very imperfectly implemented. Meanwhile the rationale to extend such a lobby firewall approach to protect action on the climate and environmental pollution crises is compelling. As a first step the Commission should stop providing privileged access to industry lobbies and ensure that civil society and community voices are heard loud and clear.
Inaccurate data?
As Corporate Europe Observatory and LobbyControl have pointed out for years, the current transparency and accountability tools at the EU level are inadequate. The flagship instrument, the EU Lobby Transparency Register, run by the Commission, Parliament, and the Council, remains riddled with inaccurate data. As detailed in our methodology, within a complete dataset of 175 declared spenders of €1 million or more, we identified at least 12 entries where that level of lobby spending seemed implausibly high. Sidenote Meanwhile the ongoing issue of under-reporting lobby expenditures by some of the Brussels Bubble’s most active corporate lobby groups again reflects the lack of scrutiny by policy-makers. A legally-binding lobby register is the only way to deliver meaningful sanctions for posting inaccurate data and to therefore drive up the overall quality of the lobby data on the EU register. The register will be reviewed by July 2025; introducing a legally-binding register is long overdue.
The full data analysis is available here and the full briefing including methodology is available here. Below are summaries of each of the biggest declaring corporate sectors.
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