Apple held 257 meetings with EU policymakers since mid-2024, second only to Google, an FT analysis findsApple held 257 meetings with EU policymakers since mid-2024, second only to Google, an FT analysis finds

Apple met EU policymakers 257 times between June 2024 and this autumn, more than any company except Google, according to a Financial Times analysis published on 1 October.

The FT's article is behind a paywall, and this account draws on Dealroom's summary of it. The FT built its count from the EU Transparency Register and the meeting records of the Commission and Parliament, and acknowledged limits in its method. Google, with its subsidiaries, led with 302 meetings and Amazon followed Apple with 239. Only three European companies, TotalEnergies, Volkswagen and Airbus, made the top 20 meeting organisations. 9to5Mac reported the analysis the same day; its account places Amazon 14th, which conflicts with the FT's figures as other summaries report them, and the FT's ordering is used here.

How much does Apple spend?

Apple's own entry in the EU Transparency Register, as mirrored by LobbyFacts, declares between 8 and 9 million euros of lobbying costs for the year from October 2024 to September 2025. That is up from 6.5 to 7 million euros two years earlier, and from 275,000 euros in 2011. The entry lists 28 people involved, equal to 8.4 full-time posts, two European Parliament access passes and 186 high-level Commission meetings. The FT puts Apple at about 9 million euros a year, more than TotalEnergies, Volkswagen and Airbus combined, and Meta above 10 million.

What is Apple lobbying about?

Apple's register entry names the Digital Markets Act, the Digital Services Act, artificial intelligence, data protection, ecodesign and cybersecurity among its interests. The FT reports that Google, Amazon and Apple also lobbied on cloud regulation and children's online safety, an area where the EU's proposed Kids Act is now under discussion. Raphaël Kergueno of Transparency International EU told the FT that policymakers seem to be giving more access to US companies. Apple has not commented on the analysis.

Our take

None of this is surprising, and that is the point worth making. Apple has spent two years arguing that EU rules degrade iPhone security and delay features for European users. The count shows it is making that argument in person, at a rate only Google matches. A company that says it is being regulated badly will spend to say so, and Apple's declared budget has roughly doubled in the period the DMA was written and enforced.

Meetings measure access, not influence, and the FT is careful to say so. What APPDOOK would watch is the outcome rather than the count: whether the rules now being drafted, on children's online safety in particular, end up shaped around app store age checks, which suits Apple, or around platform obligations that fall on it directly. The answer will show whether 257 meetings bought anything.

For European iPhone owners, the practical meaning is slower. Every feature Apple holds back in the EU is the product of the same dispute these meetings are part of, and it is not ending soon.