Nah, all that stuff is illegal today. The bribery comes later in the form of, “hey, you worked with us on that bill, maybe you’d be a good board member! We pay $xxx,xxx per year to board members and they meet 4 times a year” or, “you know, without this legislation we could totally open a new factory in your state; say, doesn’t your cousin own a supply company there? I wonder what a new factory would do for his business…”

That’s legal in Europe too. Where’s Gerhard Schroeder these days?

Since you brought up Schröder imma make it pretty Germany specific: parties and candidates are much less reliant on fundraising. Coalition building makes bribing/lobbying certain parties way less efficient. Ranked party lists makes singular politicians less targetable for bribing/lobbying. And Schröder has become one of the least popular former chancellors due to his engagements in Russian oil corporations and with the war going on pretty universally a persona non grata

Congressional staffers aren’t allowed to accept meals from lobbyists. The rules are very strict, to the point where government employees will do stuff like kick in for the price of their meal at things like industry conferences.

That's of course what's legal "over the counter". Now look under the table and you find the real bribes. Just from the past decade of french politics i could name at least half a dozen major bribery/collusion scandals that resulted in no punishment for the criminals in power.

And of course, as someone else pointed out, you don't necessarily need to take a bribe right now when you know you can quit your job as a regulator to earn 6 digits working for industry. That's a common bargain with regulators, but it's not even just them. You could say the same about journalists, who at least here in France, often refrain from criticizing private propaganda machines (Lagardère/Bolloré/Bouygues/LVMH empires who control >50% of media) because they don't want to compromise their chances of getting a job with them later.

I remember learning during my ethics briefing (OMB, not congressional) that industry events frequented by feds and congressional staffers will oftentimes say on the invitation how much the catering will cost per person and provide a way for attendees to reimburse the event organizers. Most events will just serve coffee and muffins to avoid this (since it's generally considered kosher to take a small pastry and a beverage w/o needing to file an ethics disclosure or pay back the organizer).

I run into this all the time at industry events. The Congressional ethics rules draw the line at “”reasonable hors d'oeuvres” but not “full meals.”