A coalition of NGOs, comprised of Friends of the Earth Europe, the Corporate Europe Observatory and LobbyControl and going under the banner LobbyFacts, has compiled a raft of data, extrapolated from the EU Transparency Register, to show the scale of lobbying of European Union politicians.
This LobbyFacts list ranks companies according to their declared expenditure on lobbying activities in the most recent year for which they have provided figures.
Organisation Name Country of contact Lobbying costs Philip Morris International Inc. Switzerland 5,000,000 - 5,250,000 € ExxonMobil Petroleum & Chemical Belgium 4,750,000 - 5,000,000 € Microsoft Corporation United States 4,500,000 - 4,750,000 € Shell Companies Netherlands 4,250,000 - 4,500,000 € Siemens AG Germany 4,355,792 € GDF SUEZ France 3,750,000 - 4,000,000 € General Electric Company United States 3,250,000 - 3,500,000 € ASTRAMATIC, S.A.U. Spain 3,000,000 - 3,250,000 € Huawei Technologies China 3,000,000 € Bayer AG Germany 2,760,000 €
This LobbyFacts list shows the number of registered lobby organisations per country of origin. However, please note that many lobby organisations are registered as being based in Belgium but they actually lobby on behalf of interests based in other countries.
Country Number of registered Belgium 1662 Germany 851 France 703 United Kingdom 658 Italy 616 Spain 411 Netherlands 344 United States 156 Austria 154
This LobbyFacts list ranks trade associations according to their declared expenditure on lobbying activities in the most recent year for which they have provided figures. The list can also be sorted per country.
Organisation Name Country of contact Lobbying costs Association for Financial Markets in Europe United Kingdom 10,000,000 € Scottish Fishermen's Federation United Kingdom 7,750,000 - 8,000,000 € European Chemical Industry Council Belgium 5,900,000 € ANIA Association Nationale des Industries Alimentaires France 4,750,000 - 5,000,000 € European Banking Federation Belgium 4,250,000 - 4,500,000 € Association de l'Aviculture, de l'Industrie et du Commerce de Volailles dans les Pays de l'Union Europeenne asbl Belgium 4,000,000 - 4,250,000 € BUSINESSEUROPE Belgium 4,000,000 - 4,250,000 € Verband der Chemischen Industrie e.V. Germany 3,630,000 € Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie e.V. Germany 3,100,000 €
For more detail on these tables, please visit the LobbyFacts website.