Huawei named by Belgian authorities in brewing European Parliament bribery scandal

Yahoo

13-03-2025

More than 100 Belgian police officers raided premises implicated in a lobbying scandal in the European Parliament on Thursday morning, with federal prosecutors later in the day naming the company at the centre of the investigation as Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies.
The Belgian Federal Prosecutor's Office said several individuals were arrested for questioning over an "active corruption" case in the parliament as well as for "forgery and use of false documents".
"The corruption is said to have been practised regularly and very discreetly from 2021 to the present day, under the guise of commercial lobbying and taking various forms, such as remuneration for taking political positions or excessive gifts such as food and travel expenses or regular invitations to football matches," the office said in an update first thing Thursday.
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"The alleged bribery is said to have benefited Huawei," the office announced later in the day.
As the investigation developed, offices used by two parliamentary assistants were sealed off and European Parliament President Roberta Metsola was notified.
The prosecutor's office said that the lobbying was "promoting purely private commercial interests in the context of political decisions".
A joint investigation by Brussels-based news site Follow the Money, Belgian daily Le Soir and Dutch-language weekly Knack first reported Huawei as the focus of the investigation, saying the "dawn raids were part of a covert police investigation that started about two years ago after a tip-off from the Belgian secret service".
Follow the Money said Huawei's EU office as well as the homes of its lobbyists were among the sites raided.
Huawei did not respond to several requests for comment.
The media outlets reported that "around 15 [former] MEPs are on the radar" of the investigators and that members of the European Parliament may have been offered "luxurious trips to China and even cash to secure their support of the company while it faced pushback in Europe".
The prosecutor's office said an investigation into alleged money laundering was also under way.
"The financial advantages linked to the alleged corruption may have been mixed up in financial flows linked to the defrayal of conference expenses, and paid to various intermediaries, with a view to concealing their illicit nature or enabling the perpetrators to escape the consequences of their actions," the office said.
Huawei has been under pressure in Europe for many years, with the European Commission urging the EU's 27 member states to remove the company from telecoms networks due to security concerns.
Not all states have complied. During her confirmation hearing late last year, European Union tech commissioner Henna Virkkunen said she was not satisfied with the progress. "Member states have not taken this problem seriously enough," she said.
A commission spokesman said it had "no comment" on the case, but encouraged countries to cut Huawei out of Europe's 5G networks.
"We're urging member states to adopt swift action. This is a recommendation, but we will continue to engage with our member states," the spokesman said.
Lawmakers called for the parliament to take action.
"I expect a clear and forceful response from the European Parliament president. The credibility of our institution is at stake, so no ifs or buts but clear and forceful measures should be taken," said Bart Groothuis, a centrist MEP and the former head of the Dutch government's cybersecurity agency.
"Demonstrate we have learned from Qatargate, demonstrate the new measures in place are effective," he said, referring to a 2022 corruption scandal in which parliament officials, lobbyists and their families were allegedly bribed by the governments of Qatar, Morocco and Mauritania.
Qatar and Morocco were added to the parliament's restricted list, limiting access to European officials. China and Iran were also on that list after they sanctioned MEPs in 2021.
But the Post reported last week that the parliament has dropped all such restrictions for those four countries, leaving only Belarus and Russia out in the cold.
The decision had been seen as another sign of improvement in the European Union's ties with China, driven in large part by the collapse in Europe's ties with the US.
But Thursday's raid and the brewing scandal could undercut those efforts.
The head of the parliament's China delegation, Engin Eroglu, said that the chamber "knows Beijing's influence operations all too well".
"Even in this current geopolitical climate, China is not a partner but is a systemic rival and increasingly a security threat. #HuaweiGate," he wrote on social media.
Eroglu said separately that some MEPs tried last month to block a debate on a resolution condemning Thai authorities for the deportation of 40 members of the Uygur ethnic group to China on February 27.
The reason given, he said, was "because a delegation of the European Parliament was to travel to Thailand".
Eight lawmakers were in Thailand while the deportations took place, but did not make any public statements on the issue.
The resolution went before the parliament for debate on Wednesday night and was passed with a clear majority in a vote on Thursday.
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2025 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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