A weekly newsletter on campaigning, lobbying and political influence in the EU.
POLITICO PRO EU Influence
By ELISA BRAUN
Tips, tales, traumas to @elisabraun or [email protected] | View in your browser
BONJOUR. From its humble beginnings as a club of merchants, the European Union has always been a place for cutting deals. In the game of influence, there are legitimate players — lobbying is a thriving industry, and keeps consultancies fat and happy. But then there’s the more “entrepreneurial” side of the trade, in which a politician’s signature on a letter is no longer a matter of policy expertise and conscience, but a negotiable commodity.
In the Brussels bubble, the lofty ideals of democracy sit (sometimes uncomfortably) close to the wheeling and dealing of a city market, somewhat like the one we see every weekend near Anderlecht’s abattoirs, known for cheap fruits and machine guns. While this transactionalism might not be the most flattering read of the EU, these past two weeks have shown the trade is alive and kicking. As we send this newsletter, new police raids are ongoing at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. More to come soon!
Today we’re talking about:
— The Huawei bribery probe, and how much a parliamentary letter is worth
— Those who no longer see Huawei as a market opportunity
— An agri lobby’s influence scheme to curb EU decision-making process in favor of farmers
HOW MUCH FOR A PARLIAMENTARY LETTER? (AND IS IT WORTH IT?)
MORE NEWS ON HUAWEI PROBE. Belgian prosecutors are investigating whether Huawei made illicit payments to European parliamentarians for a favorable letter sent in February 2021, we found out through an arrest warrant we saw earlier this week. The open letter, signed by 8 MEPs, did not directly name Huawei. However, it appeared to advocate for the tech giant’s 5G interests at a time where the EU sought to limit Chinese tech influence over security concerns.
The Commission acknowledged receipt. Back in the day, this letter had little to no effect. The three commissioners it was addressed to simply answered: “We take note of your concerns regarding the strategic measures concerning restrictions with regard to certain suppliers,” but these “measures apply to everybody, without targeting any actor or country in particular,” according to the official response from the European Commission, dated May 28, 2021 and shared with my colleague Mathieu Pollet.
The money issue: Regardless of whether the letter had any effect on EU policy, the police are investigating alleged payments of €15,000 for the letter’s author and €1,500 for each signatory, a scheme reportedly backed by Huawei executives. As of March 13, when the warrant was issued, the police had no evidence of that, they have since arrested several individuals, including aides to Italian MEP Fulvio Martusciello, who co-signed the letter.
The spying issue: A lobbyist’s office — and that of Huawei — was searched by secret services in Brussels, we learned from the warrant. Belgian authorities later wired the lobbyist’s car, tapped his phone, searched into his computer. When they dug into the metadata of the digital file of the letter, it suggested the lobbyist and Martusciello’s aide were its original authors — and that the lobbyist had even bragged to his colleagues that Huawei might pay for amendments to legislative work.
Right of reply: Huawei did not respond to a request for comment. A company spokesperson said in an earlier statement: “Huawei takes these allegations seriously and will urgently communicate with the investigation to further understand the situation. Huawei has a zero tolerance policy towards corruption or other wrongdoing, and we are committed to complying with all applicable laws and regulations at all times.”
Ah, memory! The police identified wire transfers between Huawei’s regular contractors and one of Martusciello’s former assistants, as well as Martusciello himself. The MEP did not reply to multiple requests for comment on the matter. Many of the MEPs who signed the letter told us they can’t remember putting their name to it, and pushed back against claims they had received money. Could bad actors have sold their signatures and political backing at their expense, like we saw in last year’s Qatargate scandal? We hope to find out soon.
SPEAKING OF QATARGATE AND MEMORY … This new episode marks a significant development in the wider corruption inquiries linked to the European Parliament, following the Qatargate affair, and raises the question of how to investigate what happens at the Parliament. Short answer: it’s hard. MEPs enjoy immunity from prosecution unless it’s lifted through a lengthy and painful process, while their assistants exist in a grey area when it comes to external activities — they can lobby as much as they want if they follow some simple rules.
A recent example of how hard it is to investigate the EP: Two Italian MEPs from the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) were suspended from their groups after Belgian authorities sent a request to lift their immunity almost a month ago. As my colleague Max Griera recently found out, bureaucracy is making the process painfully slow. Before progressing, each immunity waiver case first needs to be assigned an expert lawmaker — and that won’t happen until April 23.
In the meantime, the two MEPs continue to receive their normal allowances and hold onto their voting rights — and have been seen arguing their corner at the Parliament. “They are making phone calls and trying to offer coffees to members of the legal affairs committee, it is not elegant,” said a Parliament official close to the matter.
ONCE SEEN AS AN OPPORTUNITY, IS HUAWEI NOW TOO RISKY?
THERE’S GROWING PRESSURE… on organizations and consultancies to rethink their ties to Huawei in the face of increasing scrutiny of its activities in Europe. As we reported last week with my colleague Pieter Haeck, Huawei is steadily becoming a persona non grata within Brussels’ numerous EU trade associations. These organizations often serve as strategic platforms for companies seeking to shield their interests within a crowd, allowing them to discreetly influence policy through informal channels and events while amplifying their positions with the power of a group. Digital Europe suspended Huawei from its work just last week, underlining the shifting dynamics.
So, what now? We’ve spoken to consultancies that worked closely with Huawei, only to find themselves grappling with the new reality. “I think consultancies here will think twice before taking a contract with them,” said a senior consultant from a public affairs company who worked for Huawei for six months. A Belgian consultancy also found itself thrown into the storm when its name appeared in reports of a criminal investigation related to Huawei. A lawyer for the consultancy asked us not to name them, while the police investigate whether they helped Huawei pay a consultant who has been arrested by the police as part of the probe. An event company who was also regularly working with Huawei, found itself in the same position — and did not answer multiple requests for comment.
Panic update. One company also quickly updated entries in the lobbying register related to their partnership with Huawei, my colleague Hanne Cokelaere spotted. That’s the case of Skill Set Technology & Strategy Services Limited, a one-man business owned by Dick Roche, a former Irish minister, which until March 14 registered Huawei Technologies as a client between 2022 and 2023 — then the most recently declared closed financial year. According to that register, his work for Huawei had brought in between €100,000 and €199,999. But in the afternoon of March 14, just as the probe was made public, the page of his company no longer showed traces of this client. Roche didn’t answer our multiple calls, but has since updated his page again to correct the financial year of his latest entries, now displayed as 2023-2024.
Even before the fiasco, many consultancies here have preferred to play it safe. Fipra is one of them, three people familiar with a contract with Huawei told us. The company ended it in 2022 as risks emerged related to the company, one person told us, with another one saying more bluntly that some people feared the company was crossing the line. As Peter Tulkens, a partner at Fipra who leads the tech practice, told us (more diplomatically): “We decided that the general context made it more challenging to work with this client.”
HOW TO INFLUENCE AN EU AGENCY
COLDIRETTI’S CONFLICT OF INTEREST ON CULTIVATED MEAT: A supposedly independent scientific panel created by the Italian government to assess the impact of cultivated, or “lab-grown,” meat is staffed by academics also working for a think tank affiliated with Coldiretti, Italy’s largest farmer union and the EU’s loudest critic of cultivated meat, my colleague Alessandro Ford writes in to report. Italian media revealed the news last week.
Back to the start: Italy unilaterally banned cultivated meat in 2023, likely in violation of EU rules. The controversial decision was driven by fierce lobbying from Coldiretti, which fears the novel food could eventually bankrupt livestock farmers. Seeking to retroactively justify that choice, in January 2024 the Italian ministries of health and agriculture set up an “interinstitutional technical roundtable” to assess the food’s societal and economic impact.
At the same time: The European Food Safety Authority, which is assessing the first two submissions for market authorization for cultivated meats (before EU countries vote on them), was taking feedback on how to update its submission guidelines. The think tank in question, which was founded by Coldiretti and shares the same headquarters, was a prolific respondent. It submitted 11 critical comments to the EFSA in 2024, calling for the food to instead be regulated as a pharmaceutical, with lengthy clinical and preclinical trials. These would discourage food startups from applying for regulatory approval in the EU — which is what farmers want.
Fast forward: In February 2025, the independent roundtable published remarkably similar recommendations, which Coldiretti cited as justification when they protested in front of EFSA headquarters in Parma last week, demanding EFSA unilaterally tighten its rules.
But but but: It turns out all five external experts on the roundtable are members of the think tanks’s scientific committee. In other words, “the so-called ‘independent scientists’ weren’t independent at all, but were all reporting to this … Coldiretti foundation,” concluded Benedetto Della Vedova, an opposition MP who has led criticism of the government’s novel food policy.
State capture? “The government is totally captured by Coldiretti on this issue, that is, the government’s line is Coldiretti’s line, which is not a legally and scientifically sustainable one, it is a corporate defense and a [commercial] interest,” he told Morning Agri.
Telling truths: Before that news broke, Coldiretti had been declaring victory after their protest last Wednesday, claiming they were “satisfied with EFSA’s commitment to conducting every necessary analysis on every single notified product, including pre-clinical and clinical tests on foods derived from cell cultures and precision fermentation.”
Fact check: An EFSA spokesperson confirmed to Morning Agri that the agency’s policy has not changed. The decision to protest outside a regulator’s building has also drawn ire from the industry. “It is shameful to disrupt the workings of an EU scientific agency with a protest designed to intimidate civil servants,” said Robert E. Jones, vice president of Global Public Affairs for Mosa Meat, a Dutch cultivated meat startup.
Crickets from Coldiretti: The farmer union declined to comment on this week’s events.
JUDICIARY CORNER
EPPO BOMBSHELL INVESTIGATION. The European Public Prosecutor’s Office has launched an administrative inquiry into potential misconduct by the Bulgarian European Prosecutor, Teodora Georgieva. In a statement issued on March 26, EPPO emphasized that the investigation concerns the independence of its European Prosecutors, a core value that is essential to the office’s functioning.
The investigation follows recent allegations about the Bulgarian prosecutor. Earlier this month, Bulgarian media claimed there were links between Georgieva and Petyo Petrov, a former influential figure in Bulgaria’s investigative services.
The Sofia City Prosecutor’s Office in 2023 had already initiated an anti-corruption check on Georgieva, after accusations of her potential connections to Petrov, which according to local media Capital ended in the absence of evidence of a crime. An investigation by Bulgaria’s Commission for Combating Corruption is ongoing.
EPPO’s inquiry into Georgieva comes amid broader concerns about attempts by Bulgarian officials to impede EPPO’s high-profile investigations and a few weeks after Georgieva’s mother died in a house fire, prompting EPPO to grant her additional protection. Georgieva denied any ties with Petrov and claimed the accusations were part of a pressure campaign following a high-profile case she is investigating.
HEADLINES
— EU leaders under influence of booze bosses as trade war escalates (POLITICO Pro)
— How ‘France First’ doomed a nuclear CEO (POLITICO)
— The Pathetic, Cowardly Collapse of Big Law (The Atlantic)
— The EU’s Enduring Ethical Deficit in the Aftermath of Huawei (Alberto Alemanno)
— Les Européens, la guerre et la paix (Le Monde)
INFLUENCERS
LEGAL
Nils Wahl will join Covington’s EU Competition and Litigation Practice based in Covington’s Brussels office. Wahl served as a judge at the Court of Justice of the European Union between 2019 and 2024. He had previously held positions of Advocate General before the Court (2012-2019), and a judge before the General Court (2006-2012).
DIPLOMACY
Thomas van den Berg started a new job as financial services attaché at the Permanent Representation of the Netherlands to the EU.
ENERGY
Zarina Elizabeth Danling is now EU policy advisor at Vattenfall. She was previously with Airbus.
CONSULTING
Former Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar will join Penta’s global advisory board next month.
Alessandra Cassisi started a new position as Associate EU Trade and Industrial Policy at Global Counsel.
PUBLIC AFFAIRS & COMMS
Shearwater Global announced the appointment of Anne Dufermont as a partner, based in Brussels. She was previously with Altermind agency.
Charles Feld joined Amazon‘s EU public policy team as principal in charge of campaigns and advocacy. He previously worked as director of the EU energy, environment and transport practice at Grayling.
NGO
After 10 years working at the European Commission, most recently as Head of Cabinet of former Commissioner Věra Jourová, Daniel Braun has become CEO of GLOBSEC.
INDUSTRY
After six years at the Confederation of Finnish Industries, Karoliina Rasi will head public affairs at the Finnish sustainable stainless steel manufacturer Outokumpu.
The European Recycling Industries’ Confederation re-elected Olivier François (of Galloo) as its president for a three-year term. He will be supported by four vice presidents: FER director-general Alicia Garcia-Franco, Assofermet President Cinzia Vezzosi, executive board member of the REON Group Peter Hodecek and bvse Deputy Chairman Sebastian Will, who was also appointed as treasurer.
Un grand merci à : Mathieu Pollet, Max Griera, Alessandro Ford, Pieter Haeck, Šejla Ahmatović, my editor Nathalie Weatherald, Sasha Schroeder and Iggy Pop of course.