Despite Amazon being banned from visiting the premises of the European Parliament, representatives from the US e-commerce company still managed to secure 66 meetings with lawmakers over the past year, data made public by anti-corruption advocacy group Transparency International shows.
Due to the high number of lawmakers that did not declare any meeting with interest groups (90 out of 720 MEPs), as well as the large number of informal meetings that do not have to be registered, the actual number of interactions could be higher.
Amazon has been excluded from the Parliament since February last year after lawmakers from the Employment and Social Affairs Committee (EMPL) called for the measure following the company’s failure to attend a series of hearings and factory visits in 2021 and 2023 related to workers’ rights.
A hearing with EMPL, as a precondition to get the badges back, is set for 26 June, but as Euronews reported, the two sides disagree about the speakers and their seniority.
The data – an analysis of lawmakers’ meetings from June 2024 to June 2025 – shows that some 66 meetings took place until June 2025 with representatives from Amazon, including ten with its cloud division Amazon Web Services.
The meetings, held virtually, in Brussels or Strasbourg, were mostly about digital legislation such as the AI Act and the Digital Euro as well as about digital infrastructure and competitiveness.
Surprisingly, 19 of the meetings were listed as taking place in the European Parliament. This could have been with consultants representing the online platform instead, or a virtual meeting not listed as such, because the access badges of the 14 representatives in Brussels were revoked.
In one case, a meeting with MEP Alexandra Geese (Germany/Greens-EFA) was part of an event by the German region of North Rhein Westphalia and also included speakers from broadcasters RTL and ARD. In another case, MEP Axel Voss (Germany/EPP) met Amazon as part of a wider group of companies regarding copyright and AI.
Political groups
Most of the meetings were with politicians from the centre-right EPP group, followed by nine meetings with both the centre-left S&D and the liberal Renew group.
Jörgen Warborn (Sweden/EPP) met the company five times, the most of all politicians. Two of those meetings were about SMEs and three about digital infrastructure.
Warborn is a shadow-rapporteur, meaning he drafts an opinion, attached to the Tech Sovereignty report by MEP Sara Knafo (France/ESN).
The Amazon representatives are not specified in the list but in two cases, the staff are named.
Nikola Bartůšek (Czechia/PfE) met Kateřina Štechová, an Amazon public policy manager, to discuss the company’s activities in the EU and Czechia. And MEP Fernand Kartheiser (Luxembourg/NA) discussed the “development of Amazon” with James Waterworth, director of EU public Policy and Italo di Lorenzo, the company’s public policy lead for Luxembourg.
Declaration of meetings
Transparency International looked at a total of 31,000 meetings between MEPs and lobbyists. However, 90 out of the 720 total of MEPs, did not declare a single meeting since the beginning of their mandate.
Within the far-right Europe of Sovereign Nation and the non-attached members some 38% of the politicians do not declare meetings, meaning that the actual number of discussions with lobbyists is likely to be much higher.
The report recommends that MEPs only meet with registered lobbyists, and that the rules should be monitored closely.
“Under the current system, members are only required to publish scheduled meetings with lobbyists. This represents a major limitation, as meetings can often take place informally. Parliament should change this rule to require the publication of all meetings, whether formal or informal,” Transparency International said.
