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Apple Now Spends Over $8 Million Lobbying the EU Annually

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Apple spent more money lobbying EU officials in 2025 than in any previous year, according to a new dataset from Corporate Europe Observatory, which reports that Apple now allocates roughly €7 million ($8.2 million) annually to influence European regulation.

european-commission.jpg

Apple is identified by the report as one of the ten largest tech-sector lobby spenders in Europe. Those ten companies together account for €49 million of digital-industry lobbying out of a total €151 million recorded in the EU Transparency Register for 2025. Apple previously disclosed spending between €3.5 million and €3.75 million per year in 2021, revealing a near-doubling of declared expenditure within four years.

The report attributes the increase to ongoing EU regulatory activity targeting large American technology firms, including the Digital Markets Act, Digital Services Act, AI Act, and GDPR enforcement. The research notes that Apple participated in 29 formal meetings with high-level European Commission officials between January and June 2025. Amazon recorded 43 meetings in the same window, Microsoft 36, Google 35, and Meta 27.

Artificial intelligence policy was the most frequent topic of Commission-level discussions in the period. According to the meeting minutes, AI was referenced in 58 of the 146 logged meetings with the five largest U.S. tech companies. Other files that Apple and peers lobbied on include data centers and cloud infrastructure (23 meetings), the Digital Services Act (17), the Digital Markets Act (16), and the forthcoming Digital Fairness Act (16).

Apple also engaged with members of the European Parliament. The dataset records 232 meetings between MEPs and the five largest U.S. tech firms in the first six months of 2025. Apple was present at 47 of those interactions. Meta held 63, Amazon 49, Google 47, and Microsoft 34.

Corporate Europe Observatory further attributes €2.3 million of Apple expenditure to consultancy contracts, covering lobbying agencies, PR firms, and third-party research entities. In the same category, Amazon spent €2.84 million and Meta €1.5 million.

Multiple Brussels-based think tanks, including Bruegel, Centre for European Reform, Centre for European Policy Studies, and Centre on Regulation in Europe, now list ongoing financial support from all five U.S. Big Tech firms.

Apple's higher spending comes at a time when EU digital rules are tightening. Its move into the top tier of lobby spenders therefore tracks the fact that Apple now has direct financial and product exposure to every major EU tech issue currently on the table.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: Apple Now Spends Over $8 Million Lobbying the EU Annually
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/10/29/apple-now-spends-8-million-lobbying-eu/
dcingie said:
Lobbying should be completely illegal. It’s wild we allow any company to bribe elected officials.
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Bribery is the exchange of money or favors to influence an official’s decision—illegal almost everywhere. Lobbying is communicating with an elected official to share views or information. When you call or email your representative, you’re lobbying! It can be paid or unpaid, and in most places it’s legal but regulated (e.g., disclosure rules, gift limits, etc.).

If lobbying were illegal: 1) constituents couldn’t contact their representatives, 2) subject-matter experts (including in business, medicine, academia, and advocacy) couldn’t offer input, 3) lawmakers would legislate with less real-world information.

This is why bribery, which corrupts decisions and is banned, but lobbying is not. Lobbying informs decisions and is permitted—within rules—to keep government officials responsive and better-informed.

Edited: To make this a little clearer and to add a personal example.

Some years back I was went with a group of patients and experts to visit some representatives in Washington D.C. I was one of the experts. We were "advocating" (lobbying) for more NIH funding of research into a particular disease/diagnosis. This was a one-time thing and I wasn't paid but my travel expenses were reimbursed by the organization I went with.

Is that "good" lobbying? It depends what your view of NIH funding is. Should it increase? If so, then my lobbying was "good". Should it decrease? If so, then my lobbying was "bad". How good or bad it is depends on personal opinion about what's being lobbied for or against.

So maybe companies should be banned from having lobbyists? What if a government is looking at passing a law or passes a law that harms businesses? Should a business have to go through the legal system and have no other recourse? What if a law harms both businesses and consumers? Businesses cannot contact (lobby) elected officials on behalf of businesses and consumers?

These are not just hypotheticals.
 
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neuropsychguy said:
Bribery is generally illegal in most places. Lobbying is a citizen, group, corporation, etc. contacting an elected official. If you call or email your elected official you are lobbying. You might not be paid for doing that, but it's still lobbying.

If you say lobbying is illegal people have no way of contacting representatives. Experts (which can include people in business) would have no way to offer their input. This would mean elected officials would have to make laws without input from people outside politics. I don't think anyone wants that.
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Lobbying is too broad of a term. What is happening, and what should be illegal, is flying out government personal, wining and dining them, smoking cigars in the back and making deals, "donating" massive money to their pork projects, giving high-paid positions to their kids or relatives/friends, etc.
 
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WarmWinterHat said:
Lobbying is too broad of a term. What is happening, and what should be illegal, is flying out government personal, wining and dining them, smoking cigars in the back and making deals, "donating" massive money to their pork projects, giving high-paid positions to their kids or relatives/friends, etc.
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Lobbying is a broad term, which is why people who say "lobbying should be illegal" don't really understand what lobbying includes. Representative governments only function with lobbying. Direct democracy with no representatives or centralized leaders of any form can work without lobbying. Authoritarian governments can as well if a dictator makes all decisions without input form others. Every other form of government needs some level of lobbying.

Also, if that's happening, why isn't the EU regulating those meetings? If they are regulating them, why are they not enforcing the regulations? Are you saying Apple is doing that in the EU?
 
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Maybe this article is written by an American?

It says: The report attributes the increase to ongoing EU regulatory activity targeting large American technology firms, including the Digital Markets Act, Digital Services Act, AI Act, and GDPR enforcement.

But all those acts and the GDPR enforcement are not only valid for American companies. They are valid for all companies doing business in the EU. Including EU companies.

Sounds like America or American companies are poor poor victims and we should be mad at the EU for being so unfair 😅 Those companies are some of the richest in the world and I can’t really take their fake tears serious.
 
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Banan911 said:
Maybe this article is written by an American?

It says: The report attributes the increase to ongoing EU regulatory activity targeting large American technology firms, including the Digital Markets Act, Digital Services Act, AI Act, and GDPR enforcement.

But all those acts and the GDPR enforcement is not only valid for American companies. They are valid for all companies doing business in the EU.

America or American companies aren’t victims in this.
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If you write a law in such a way that only American companies are targeted, and the EU ones are avoided, then you have effectively targeted US companies, even if the law doesn't say "only applies to US companies." And that's absolutely what happened with the DMA and DSA.

I mean, some of the law's strongest backers successfully worked to raise the qualifications for being a gatekeeper to ensure EU firms wouldn't be impacted, saying "we shouldn't include a EU tech giant just to appease Biden."
 
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Banan911 said:
Maybe this article is written by an American?

It says: The report attributes the increase to ongoing EU regulatory activity targeting large American technology firms, including the Digital Markets Act, Digital Services Act, AI Act, and GDPR enforcement.

But all those acts and the GDPR enforcement are not only valid for American companies. They are valid for all companies doing business in the EU. Including EU companies.

Sounds like America or American companies are poor poor victims and we should be mad at the EU for being so unfair 😅 Those companies are some of the richest in the world and I can’t really take their fake tears serious.
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Probably because only American tech companies are considered gate keepers on the DMA, there are no EU companies. I think the DSA and AI Act (don’t know as much about these) also heavily focus on limiting American tech. The only broad act that effects everyone equally is the GDPR and all the horrible cookie bars we now have because of it.

I could be wrong though. Maybe there is a non-American company on the DMA gatekeeper list.
 
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20 FTEs solely dedicated solely to improving software quality @ $400,000 per year per FTE = $8 million. Priorities Tim. Please I am BEG-ing ** you.

** BEG = Bug Eradication Group
 
The_Gream said:
Probably because only American tech companies are considered gate keepers on the DMA, there are no EU companies. I think the DSA and AI Act (don’t know as much about these) also heavily focus on limiting American tech. The only broad act that effects everyone equally is the GDPR and all the horrible cookie bars we now have because of it.

I could be wrong though. Maybe there is a non-American company on the DMA gatekeeper list.
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Bytedance is a gatekeeper, and is neither American nor European.

Booking.com is a gatekeeper and is a Dutch company.
 
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neuropsychguy said:
Lobbying is a broad term, which is why people who say "lobbying should be illegal" don't really understand what lobbying includes. Representative governments only function with lobbying. Direct democracy with no representatives or centralized leaders of any form can work without lobbying. Authoritarian governments can as well if a dictator makes all decisions without input form others. Every other form of government needs some level of lobbying.

Also, if that's happening, why isn't the EU regulating those meetings? If they are regulating them, why are they not enforcing the regulations? Are you saying Apple is doing that in the EU?
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You are correct. It seems to be based on emotion, not reality.
 
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