BRUlobby

Depends how you rank things. I can recall couple of samples:

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In the late hours couple of MEP assistants are boozed enough to become utterly racist. MEPs as well, but I haven't really hung out with the more extreme crew. Although I have witnessed one collapsing after a fist fight within the parliament, which was curious for sure.

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Some energy intensive industries have lobbied for outrageously environmentally harmful policies. They don't often get them published in their umbrella organisations, who are either more moderate, more realistic, or actually have capable public relations people.

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And not really the worst, but I've witnessed morally very questionable astroturfing and misinformation campaigns, that have been targeting social media users in the EU bubble. Like this gem related to pesticides.

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Some morals I have betrayed for sure. On industry side I did lobby for a cause, which I knew that was environmentally dubious - even if that meant saving jobs and creating well-being for some. I am quite uncomfortable about these issues, as I know many of my colleagues were, but you are doing you job.

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But bribery and other illegal acts would be out of the question. Also, in EU lobbying there is very little exchange of goods or money anycase. There is no doubt, that the action is morally questionable and illegal. So practically speaking, the legality of the action is the main divider.

This makes the practical and moral difference a bit harder in terms of lobbying. You are certainly having influence - and you are having influence because someone is investing in influencing. It that sense, it is using money for creating influence, much like lobbying. So that obviously does create a moral dilemma. On the other hand, stakeholders have always had a place in democratic decision making. They provide expert information at the very best with clear and transparent manner. But this means, that there certainly needs to be rules for it. Uncontrolled, shady and dishonest lobbying is not very different from direct bribery.

much

There has been cases of bribery and clear violations in the European institutions (e.g. Azerbaijani case) hence it would be a lie to say that those won't exist. I haven't encountered similar cases in my own work, but on the other hand I haven't been involved with more sensitive fields, such as foreign policy, which can be vulnerable for those.

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On the other hand, I have had couple of cases, where for example one could expect that MEPs have breached their code of conduct. This would be e.g. not reporting their outside income properly. What is more worrying, is that there have been no punishments for these breaches.

Practical difference is huge. Moral difference more debatable. There was a good ELI5 on this which should sum it up nicely.

I did in some issues related to financial reporting and corporate transparency. The industry stand was basically looking only on the corporate interest (usually regulatory costs in terms of added admin and possible competitive disadvantages) whereas the civil society had the focus from citizens perspective - but actually also promoting certain standards for SME's (level playing field, access to information, helping tackle criminal financial activity).

The angle is different from who pays your bills. Industry lobbyists basically get their point only from their clients (major corporates) who's interest is often quite conservative, and new regulation is often seen more of a risk, if the current one allows them to work on high profits already. NGOs have more flexibility, but the funding is also coming from somewhere - however, you pick the funders who actually are ready to support your advocacy targets.

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In practical terms, the process is very similar from thereon. Meet your likely allies (imagine democrats/republicans), try to influence the opposing side, provide information, tackle misinformation from the opposing lobby. The political landscape is rather similar globally, so in this sense I wouldn't imagine US has many differences - except that the campaign funding from private sector really handicaps minor players.