Foreign Media: CRRC Forced to Withdraw from Lisbon Metro Project, Polish Firm Takes Over
The European Commission launched a thorough investigation under the Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR), determining that CRRC gained an unfair competitive advantage through billions of euros in state subsidies, leading its consortium to submit abnormally low bids in the tender for the construction and maintenance contract of the Lisbon Metro Purple Line. The total value of the contract is 598.8 million euros. CRRC participated as a subcontractor, responsible for supplying metro carriages, with a value of approximately 50 million euros—less than 10% of the total contract value.
The EU demanded replacing CRRC with Poland’s rail vehicle manufacturer PESA. After the consortium accepted this change, the EU concluded that market distortion had been eliminated. The China-EU Chamber of Commerce strongly opposed this decision, criticizing the EU for failing to adequately explain why a subcontractor accounting for less than 10% of the project should face such severe consequences.
Previously, CRRC’s Portuguese subsidiary withdrew from the bidding citing inability to access internal group information. However, the EU remained concerned about potential backdoor re-entry by CRRC, prompting the decision to continue the investigation until a replacement was mandated. This case is seen as a landmark example of the EU using the FSR to curb Chinese subsidy influence in the European market.
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1863096966507591/
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