How Big Tech lobbies to water down EU laws

You can listen to this post by pressing play

Bram Vranken of Corporate Europe Observatory offers an in-depth account of how Big Tech’s €150 million army of lobbyists in Brussels are exploiting the EU's obsession with "competitiveness" to water down its digital regulations.

Including:

· About Corporate Europe Observatory (to 01:47)

· Why Meta is reaching out to the far right in the European Parliament (to 07:43)

· Tactics of the tech lobbyists in Brussels (to 11:07)

· Why the EU has opened its doors to lobbyists for US firms (to 13:53)

· The case for treating Big Tech like Big Tobacco (to 18:12)

· “The next couple of years are going to be hard years” (to 20:00).

 

Explanatory note: the European Commission is the main executive body of the European Union. It proposes legislation which is voted on by the elected European Parliament. There is also a Council of EU member states.

 

Diarmid:

 Hello. This is Critical Takes on Corporate Power and I'm Diarmid O'Sullivan.

The European Union is one of the three global centers of corporate regulation, alongside the United States and China, and the EU has been praised in the past for adopting some quite strong positions on regulating Big Tech.

But now there are disturbing signs that the European Commission is being influenced to weaken these positions by heavy lobbying from US tech giants.

I'm delighted to be talking about these developments with Bram Vranken of Corporate Europe Observatory. Bram, thanks very much for making time to talk.

 

Bram Vranken:

Hi. Thanks very much for inviting me.

 

Diarmid O’Sullivan:

So perhaps you could start by telling us a little bit about Corporate Europe Observatory.

 

Bram Vranken:

So Corporate Europe Observatory, CEO in short, is a corporate lobby watchdog. We do research and campaigning against corporate influencing of the European Union because whether it's the EU climate policies, healthcare policies, digital rules, we see that very often legislation policies are skewed in the favour of large companies which have large budgets and a huge amount of lobbyists to influence EU policymaking, and often that is to the detriment of the public interest whether it’s environmental standards, climate policies or digital rights.

So we try to map industry lobbying, see what they're doing, how they're lobbying, and try to push back against that.

 

Diarmid:

And recently you co-published a new report which showed the huge scale of Big Tech lobbying in Brussels. You have this figure of 150 million euros a year that the tech industry is spending on lobbying, which is an extraordinary amount of money.

And one of the findings was that certain US tech companies are trying to build alliances with the far right in the European Parliament to weaken EU regulations. Can you tell us about what's going on there?

 

Bram Vranken:

So we've seen since the start of the [European] Commission, this new Commission, that the far right has gained a lot of influence, that there is now a centre right-far right majority in the European Parliament.

The centre-right [European People’s Party] is using the leverage of the far right against more centrist groups to get their policies done. For example, whether it's climate or environment or digital rules, they will threaten to work together with these far right parties to get their agenda through the Parliament.

So what we’ve noticed, because there's an increasing transparency on meetings that members of the European Parliament have, is that especially Meta has been increasingly meeting with far-right MEPs [Members of the European Parliament].

In the previous Parliament  they only met once with the far right, with the [European Conservatives and Reformists} ECR party, and now they've already met almost fifty times with the ECR, Patriots for Europe and other far-right groups.

Some of these MEPs that Meta is meeting are really to the far, far right of the the political spectrum. Meta seems to have no [problem] meeting them to get their political agenda done.

 

Diarmid:

Do you have a sense of why Meta in particular should be seeking out these alliances?

I mean, is there something in the European regulations which particularly affects them or is it just a strategy that they've chosen which is different from some of the other companies?

 

Bram Vranken:

I think it's because they see an opportunity there. Meta has gone through this kind of makeover where a couple of years ago, whether that’s true or not, Mark Zuckerberg would be seen as on the liberal side of politics.

He has anticipated the election of Trump. He has gone through this huge makeover. He is dressing differently, he is talking differently, and he has made a deal with the Trump administration to push back against the EU’s digital regulation, and Meta has changed its content moderation policies and so on.

I think they see an opportunity at the EU level, especially when it comes to deregulation. The Commission is pushing this deregulation agenda where they're weakening the AI [rules], they're weakening the GDPR, the data protection framework.

There is a strong possibility that left groups and centre groups in the Parliament will not agree with the digital omnibus because these are drastic measures which will undermine digital rights …

 

Diarmid:

 … We should explain when they use this term “omnibus”, this is a package of measures that's basically changes to existing regulations which would make them weaker …

 

Bram Vranken:

… Exactly. It has become the favourite tool of the Commission to weaken a bunch of rules at the same time. There have been ten omnibuses in 2025 and one of those omnibus is on digital. So it combines rules on data protection, privacy, and artificial intelligence. It tries to weaken them on one sweep.

But because the centre right is isolated in the Parliament in being such a strong proponent of this legislation, they might start looking to the far right to get these measures passed. And Meta seems to be anticipating this political dynamic and seems to be increasing its meetings with far-right MEPS to get this digital omnibus to happen.

 

Diarmid:

What's in it for the far-right MEPs? I mean, clearly they're aligned with Meta to the extent that they buy into white nationalism and so on.

But on the other hand, they're also supposed to be nationalists, right? And nationalists are not supposed to be in favour of giant foreign corporations having more power.

So are they hypocritical or are they just playing this tactically? Why would the far-right MEPs be influenced by what Meta thinks?

 

Bram Vranken:

[Partly] I think it's their ideology. They're against the regulation of the digital space. There has been this longstanding campaign calling some of these laws censorship regimes. They also have a libertarian economic framework where they think businesses should do as they please.

Part of it is also because there is huge pressure from the Trump administration on the EU and these far-right groupings are aligning themselves with the Trump administration. There a far-right ecosystem where you have Trumpist organizations, think tanks and European far right political groups, which are all part of this ecosystem and have regular contact with each other.

This has also been a priority for the Trump administration to establish these links across the world with far-right political parties. Remember Musk, for example, coming out very strongly in favour of the German extreme right party? This should all be seen in that light, I think.

 

Diarmid:

Let's talk about these lobbyists. This 150 million euros that the tech industry is spending: how is that money spent? I mean, that's an awful lot of billable hours for these Brussels lobbying firms. How do they go about actually influencing MEPs or the European Commission day to day?

 

Bram Vranken:

First of all, it's meetings. Meetings and meetings. We had a look at how many meetings these big tech companies have. And on average in the first half of 2025, they have three meetings with EU policymakers a day, just for the five big tech companies. That’s two meetings a day with Members of the European Parliament, then one meeting a day with officials of the European Commission. this is not counting the meetings they have on the national level [with the governments of the EU’s member countries] because we don't have transparency.

We only have a glimpse of what's going on, but just the fact that we can document three meetings on average in a working day shows the manpower, the lobby muscle these companies have, and they'll always look for the weakest link, right?

The Commission is not a monolith. You will have some departments within the Commission, which are more open and accessible to industry, and industry will use that to try to push back against other parts within the Commission which might not be so much in their favour.

The same with [EU] member states. These Big Tech companies will try to influence those member states that are closest to their political position, and then by convincing a couple of member states, try to create a coalition and push back against certain legislation or push for certain legislation.

But it goes beyond those meetings. It’s also about changing the narrative. You have a bunch of think tanks in the EU bubble which produce research, and all of these major European think tanks are being funded by Big Tech.

Somebody who is working for one of these think tanks once told me there's good, the bad and the ugly. The good does not exist. The bad is almost every major think tank, which accepts Big Tech money, and then you have the ugly. These are think tanks which are parroting the talking points of big tech companies.

The same also happens with the academic world where you see a lot of studies being funded by these companies. There was a piece of research a couple of weeks ago which showed that half of research done on the impact of social media has actually been funded by these big tech companies. That enables them to set the narrative in very invisible ways.

 

Diarmid:

I'm sure that's also how it's done in other industries. It’s extraordinary, isn't it, that the European Union thinks of itself as being a technocratic and law bound set of institutions. It works on the basis of conversation with stakeholders. It works on the basis of worked-out policy proposals and so on.

And yet the system is so easily infiltrated by people who use those tools. “Oh, you need to engage so  here we are engaging”  and “oh, we need to be evidence-based. So here's the evidence” and using their huge resources to basically game the system.

But for a lobbyist to get a meeting, someone has to give you a meeting. What makes people on the side of the Commission and the Parliament so receptive?

I think someone looking from outside Europe might be quite surprised given the way that  someone like [President] Emmanuel Macron from France will talk about US Big Tech. That on the one hand there's this perception of US Big Tech as a foreign threat to European democracy but on the other hand, this open door.

As an outsider it’s very hard to get your head around it. “Are you in favour of these guys or are you against them?” What's going on? Why are people so willing to listen to what they have to say?

 

Bram Vranken:

That's a good question. I think we should make a distinction between the previous Commission mandate and this one. In the previous mandate there was indeed a lot of scepticism from the Commission towards these US Big Tech companies and several pieces of legislation were passed, including the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act. Which are not perfect and definitely don’t go far enough in pushing back against these companies, but were at least steps in the right direction.

But this mandate is a completely different mandate where there is this sole obsession of the Commission with competitiveness, and the Commission sees it as “we are going to make businesses competitive again by deregulating” by scrapping rules, by lowering standards.

That is a narrative which is very, very easy for Big Tech to capitalise on. It opens the door to the interests of these companies because they will jump on the back of these European companies which are being “swamped by rules”.

[They will say] “you need to weaken the GDPR and the AI Act.” And Big Tech just moves in with the same kind of narrative and with the same kind of talking points and that's hugely effective. This deregulation pushes opening the door to these Big Tech companies.

 

Diarmid:

It this extraordinary, isn't it. Because looking at modern European history, you would expect that this fear about European competitiveness -  basically European big businesses being afraid of being out-competed by the US and China – you would think that would lead to protectionism, to keeping the big foreign companies out so that European companies could sew up the market for themselves in an anti-competitive way of their own, you know?

But what's so paradoxical is that this has become a Trojan horse for the very economic forces which the competitiveness agenda is supposed to counter. It's very hard to get one's head around the logic of all of this.

 

Bram Vranken:

It definitely is. You don't have to be a genius to see that if you start deregulating in a highly monopolized market, that won’t come to the benefit of so-called startups or European companies, but that the same monopolies will be the ones to capitalize on it.

 

Diarmid:

So what do you think can be done to curb the influence of corporate lobbyists in Brussels?

Not Big Tech in particular, but in general becase obviously this process is happening in many different areas at the moment of business trying to roll back regulations. What could be done to limit the influence of the lobbyists?

 

Bram Vranken:

So I think we need to go beyond transparency because that's the official opposition of the EU, right? You can lobby as long as it is transparent, but we need to go beyond that.

We need to come to lobby regulation. Now, as you said, it's an open door. It's a free-for-all. Those industries who have huge resources to spend to lobby the EU, they have an advantage. They have an office in Brussels. They can walk into the European Parliament, almost at will. They have one meeting after another with the Commission.

While, if you are a local community where a huge data centre is being built. Energy prices will go up. There is a massive water use. There is a lot of impact on your town or your local community. These people do not have the possibility to have those meetings with the Commission to make their voices heard.

So I think we need to move in some cases to something which has been done to the tobacco industry. As you know, the tobacco industry invented the modern lobby playbook. A lot of industries have copied these tips and trick from the tobacco industry and are now using them.

But the tobacco industry is also the first industry where there is an international framework in place under the World Health Organization which says (Article 5.3) health officials should not be meeting with the tobacco industry because the interest of the tobacco industry are completely opposed to the interest of the public of health policies.

The same is the case arguably for the fossil fuel industry, right? These guys don't have an interest in the climate crisis being resolved. Their interests are to keep pumping up oil and gas and I dunno what. So climate officials meeting with the fossil fuel industry, how is that ever going lead to the right policies which are in the public interest, which will solve the climate crisis?

The same could be said for Big Tech, right? Because these companies have become a threat to our democracy. They have a toxic business model, addictive algorithms which polarize society, and they are monopolies. They're the most powerful companies in the world right now. Some of these companies like Musk or Meta, they have platform power. They can shape public opinion. There is a real danger in just letting these companies run amok.

So we need to protect decision making and we should sometimes kick these companies [out] or limit their access to policymakers and make sure that other voices of local communities, academics, civil society, that the Commission reaches out to them to make sure that they're being heard.

 

Diarmid:

So basically ban meetings with Big Tech lobbyists and strengthen the obligation on the Commission to consult other interested groups in society?

 

Bram Vranken:

To a certain extent, ban them. But it also be open frameworks where you do invite Big Tech companies, but where you also invite other stakeholders so that if these companies do a statement which is blatantly untrue, at least there are others in the room which can contradict them.

Sometimes the Commission moves in that direction. For example, when it comes to the Digital Markets Act, they have organized open workshops where these companies, these gatekeepers … have to make clear how they comply with the legislation, but where you also have other voices in the room, which can question these companies and can say, well, you're not complying because you're having this and this and this impact on my business or my community.

 

Diarmid:

I can see there are industries where you could just say: ban, no meetings. But there are others, say agriculture or pharmaceuticals, where it's very difficult because there are a lot of big European players and it would be very difficult to say that the Commission shouldn't meet with them.

So actually forcing then to meet in a context where other views have to be represented and when there's an honest record of the conversation, I could see that working.

So just to finish off then, this is all bit daunting, really. Do you see signs for optimism? Obviously there are people [within the Commission and the Parliament] who oppose this but will they be able to organise to the point that they can push this open door half-closed?

 

Bram Vranken:

Well, the next couple of years are going to be hard years because this competitiveness agenda is consuming the Commission. They're creating all kinds of new consultation mechanisms which favour industry. They're calling it implementation dialogues or reality checks where civil society is actively being barred from participating. The Commission reaches out to industry and asks them, “which rules do you think we should water down?” And that ends up subsequently in these omnibuses.

So we are trying to get organized. I think the Commission is going to overreach. They're going so fast, watering down rules along the spectrum in every policy field, and that is creating a lot of backlash and resistance. There are more and more civil society organizations and social movements which are getting involved and pushing back against the Commission. So we are trying to coordinate and organise to push back.

 

Diarmid:

So it's going to be a pretty tough couple of years then.

 

Bram Vranken:

Yeah, we have our fights spelled out for us. That's for sure.

 

Diarmid:

That’s been a really helpful and deeply informative account of how things are working in Brussels at the moment. Bram, thanks very much for making time to talk.

 

Bram Vranken:

Thanks very much for the invitation.

 

 

The transcript ends here.