On the contrary, EU is notoriously hard for the rich to lobby. It is also the primary motivation behind the super rich to be against EU since they too are having trouble to find someone in EU to solve their "problems". A famous anecdote is from Rupert Murdock who is able to influence UK poltics at whim but had no effect on EU: https://www.quora.com/When-I-go-into-Downing-Street-they-do-...

He was also a huge backer of Brexit.

On social media there's persistent and years long push to paint EU as anti-Business. They are pushing and pushing for de-regulations.

The Pfizergate is another great example of what happens when you have a centralized decision. That scandal only exist because of the Covid, an unprecedented situation where EU has to take quick actions and had to engage with companies directly. The scope of the scandal is also extremely benign compared to what you have in other places, it's essentially a transparency scandal. No one is even seriously accusing her of abuse of her position for personal enrichment when in a normal country this type of scandal is often about giving the contract to a relative of theirs or an election campaign donor.

Once the Ukraine war is over, I also expect to see other scandals to be unearthed as they were rushed to acquire weapons fast.

There are scandals like Qatar paying an MPs to push their agenda, but other than that EU is so much less corrupt than anything the local governments have. Those involved in the Qatar scandal went to prison, how many local politicians you have who go to prison for anything other than political reasons?

Have you noticed what has been happening in US since February for example? That one is extreme but all over EU the local governments have some sort of these scams and dealings. In countries like US all you have to do is to buy president's crypto coins or make a donation for his election campaigns. In EU, you simply can't do anything of this sort. That's why those who want influence actually pay social media influencers to push an agenda and this is considerably more expensive and hard compared to just establishing a relationship and paying up the president.

Many of EU's weaknesses are also it's strength since having full control and being able to move fast comes with its risks.

That's why across the EU the trust in EU and support for EU is way higher than any local governments. The worst is over %50 in favor of EU, when most of the governments consider themselves lucky if they are in the %30s.

We seem to be exposed to different information on the EU.

> notorious for rich people to lobby

I don't know about rich people, but companies seem to have a lot of success in doing so.

> Murdoch backer of Brexit

This is not evidence that the EU is hard to lobby. People across the political spectrum can be anti-EU: Corbyn, who's as left and as anti-corruption as they come, was a Leaver (and a UK with Corbyn as PM would have arguably been better off outside the EU, but I digress).

> Ursula, scandal only about transparency and not personal enrichment

I don't know how awarding billions of public funds in contracts and then deleting all messages, something she's done before while working for the German gov, is "not that bad" and not about personal enrichment, but about her great care for efficiency and the European pop...

> Those involved in the Qatar scandal went to prison, how many local politicians you have who go to prison for anything other than political reasons?

You're cherry-picking, powerful EU officials are as immune to justice as anywhere else, and plenty of examples exist in Member States of people going to prison for corruption. The former president of France just started his prison sentence, you might have heard. Those cases are the exceptions that prove the rule.

> Have you noticed what has been happening in US since February for example?

Few countries would look good on corruption if you compare them to "What has been happening in the US", FULL STOP. That the EU is not as far gone as the US has been for decades (thank fuck) is, again, no evidence of anything.

I invite you to peruse ftm.eu, as I'm on my phone: look at the criticism of OLAF's selective investigations, the watchdogs lacking any independence and finding that everything's just dandy with EU officials, the revolving doors across so many industries, the bribes and gifts, the insider trading, employment of family members, mismanagement of funds, etc. etc. etc.

One article that I enjoyed is this:

https://archive.is/YieBg

Edited to address more of your points.

> One article that I enjoyed is this: https://archive.is/YieBg

The corruption in EU is indeed happening through local governments(EU allocates money for projects, local governments who actually end up getting the money to execute these projects siphon that to their cronies or to spice up the local economies), as per this article and the articles in ftm.eu

> as per this article

This is one article that says the European Commission is not aware of 90% of EU fraud cases: at this scale, this can't be brushed off as being the fault of member states.

> and the articles in ftm.eu

No. That is not what FTM investigations show. At all.

The site is paywalled, can't check the articles but at least one of the headlines is about the local government corruption(how Orban funnels Hungary's assets to its allies).

Since EU doesn't directly deal with anything, there's not much opportunity for corruption. It's almost always down the pipeline.

> A famous anecdote is from Rupert Murdock who is able to influence UK poltics at whim but had no effect on EU:

Is it though?

> There is much fake news published about me, but let me make clear that I have never uttered those words

https://pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/nationals/rupert-murdo...

I buy the rest of your comment that EU may be better than local govts.

People deny things all the time. He used his media in favor of UK leaving EU, which is more consistent with him not being happy with his abilities to influence EU.