The current policy environment is particularly favourably disposed towards strengthening the European Union’s response to state capture vulnerabilities. In 2020 the EU introduced a range of new initiatives, including the European Rule of Law Mechanism, the European Democracy Action Plan, and a ew Security Strategy with a strong focus on anti-corruption. The report complements previous CSD efforts to understand and monitor state capture vulnerabilities and provides a useful practical framework for risk assessment, which could guide EU policy and law enforcement efforts. It presents the findings from the pilot implementation of an innovative methodology for assessing state capture and corruption at the economic sector level based on red-flag indicators and big data. The analysis covers three economic sectors (construction, wholesale of fuels and wholesale of pharmaceuticals) in four EU countries (Bulgaria, Italy, Romania and Spain).