For many years, Amazon has been undergoing massively to influence European regulation, with 2024, a budget devoted to lobbying with European institutions between 7 and 8 million euros to its lobbying activities. An impressive figure, but which becomes even more revealing when examining the way in which this influence is organized, so instead of betting on an internal army of too visible lobbyists, Amazon delegates a major part of its strategy to a constellation of specialized cabinets. No less than twenty external structures are mobilized to cover the various regulatory fronts, from sovereign cloud to digital taxation.
Following complaints filed by several NGOs, Amazon was forced to revise its lobbying expenses declared in the European Union for 2024, bringing them to 5 million euros, against 2.75 million initially recorded in the official transparency register.
In February 2024, fourteen Amazon lobbyists were deprived of access to the European Parliament, at the request of the Employment and Social Affairs Commission (Empl), after the company shunned several hearings and visits to factories in 2021 and 2023.
A decision which has just been renewed in 2025, the European Parliament Committee of the European Parliament having confirmed the exclusion of Amazon lobbyists from the institution, while rejecting the company’s proposal to organize a closed -door meeting with executive executives.
The invitation of the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, to a closed -door meeting in Washington, DC with the leaders of Amazon, caused the ire of the unions of European workers. Oliver Roethig, regional secretary of UNI Europa, said on this subject “nWe salute the decision in principle of the Commission Esta to maintain the ban on Amazon lobbying and to reject the company’s attempt to escape the public exam during a closed -door meeting with the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola. We now want another inter-commission hearing on the broader dimensions of Amazon abuse-its work, taxation, environment and competition practices-and be organized by a visit to Amazon warehouses during the high season. European institutions should also take their own complicity seriously in the financing of Amazon’s behavior. We need total transparency and a revision of its contracts with our democratic institutions. »»
Unlike Meta or Microsoft, Amazon de facto has no lobbyist accredited to the European Parliament, but remains omnipresent in the corridors of the Commission. In two years, she participated in 175 high -level meetings with general directors, members of chief commissioners or unit chiefs and also intervenes in several groups of technical experts, in particular on artificial intelligence, VAT or cybersecurity.
The implementation of intermediaries allows Amazon finally to stay back on the political level while maintaining a structured and targeted influence. Mandated cabinets, including FTI Consulting, Fleishman-Hillard, Kreab, Edelman or Flint Europe, each deal with a portion of the vast legislative portfolio targeted. These are both environmental texts such as Green Claims Directive or packaging regulations, as well as digital files such as Digital Markets Act, AI Act or Cloud regulation.
This outsourced strategy finally allows Amazon to finely adapt its arguments to each general management, to multiply the sectoral contact points and to closely follow the evolution of technical debates. Of course, the company is particularly active on the subjects linked to AWS, the cross -border distribution via Marketplace, and its audiovisual activities, as shown by several exchanges with the DG CNECT and the firms of commissioners.
Behind the scenes, Amazon therefore advances through a dense network of public affairs cabinets, with a hypersegmentation logic: a firm for VAT, another for sustainability, a third for cybersecurity. A strategy where Amazon is ultimately less visible but formidably effective.
