You're listening.

You're listening to EU Watchdog Radio.

Welcome to the first new episode of EU Watchdog Radio after a long summer break.

My name is Hans Van Schare, media officer at Corporate Europe Observatory, also known as CEO.

And we start off the new season with a bang. Because this podcast is about how the big digital

industries and platforms like Facebook and Google and Amazon and many others try to influence European policymaking

to keep their business models intact.

New research by CEO and the colleagues

from the German Association Lobby Control

published end of August

showed the incredible lobby firepower of Big Tech

or Gaffam, as they say in French.

The new study called the Lobby Network, Big Tech's Web of Influence in the EU,

provides a unique and detailed analysis of the lobbying power of tech companies at the EU level.

It maps the biggest players, their networks and countries of origin, and

uncovers their lobby budgets and access to EU decision makers. The research also unveils

how this lobbying power plays out in practice in the context of the ongoing EU policy debates

on the Digital Services Legislative PAC.

Because this lobby search comes at the moment

where European institutions are discussing more stringent regulations

on tech companies via the so-called Digital Services Act, or DSA,

and the Digital Markets Act, or DMA, which will be explained later

...