BRUSSELS —
Belgian federal prosecutors on Thursday announced the arrest of several people as part of a corruption investigation linked to the European Parliament amid reports in local media that Chinese company Huawei bribed EU lawmakers.
The arrests came as a result of an investigation by the afternoon A newspaper and other media said lobbyists working for the Chinese telecommunications giant are suspected of bribing current or former members of the European Parliament to promote the company’s trade policy in Europe.
About 100 federal police officers carried out 21 searches in Brussels, the regions of Flanders and Wallonia and Portugal, according to the federal prosecutor’s office.
The suspects would be questioned for “alleged involvement in active corruption within the European Parliament, as well as forgery and use of forgeries,” prosecutors said. “The crimes were allegedly committed by a criminal organization.”
Huawei public relations representatives in London did not respond to an emailed request for comment and could not be reached by phone.
The European Parliament simply said that the assembly “takes note of the information” and “always cooperates fully with the judicial authorities.”
Huawei, which makes mobile phones and is the largest maker of network equipment for phone and Internet operators, has been caught in tensions between the United States and China over technology and trade.
Some European nations have followed Washington’s lead and banned Huawei equipment from next-generation mobile networks over accusations that it poses a security risk that could help facilitate Chinese espionage. The company has denied this repeatedly.
European Commission spokesman Thomas Regnier said the EU executive had no comment on the investigation, but underlined the security concerns the commission has about Huawei and Europe’s fifth-generation mobile networks.
“The security of our 5G networks is obviously crucial for our economy,” Regnier told reporters. “Huawei poses materially greater risks than other 5G vendors.”
EU member states should “quickly take decisions to restrict or exclude Huawei from their 5G networks,” Regnier said. “Failure to act quickly would expose the EU as a whole to clear risk.”
Federal prosecutors, who did not name Huawei, said they believe there was corruption “from 2021 to the present” in various forms, “such as remuneration for holding political office or excessive gifts such as food and travel expenses or regular invitations to soccer games.”
Prosecutors say the payments could have been disguised as business expenses and, in some cases, could have been directed to third parties. They would also seek to “detect any evidence of money laundering.”
During the searches the police seized several documents and objects. Staff at Huawei’s Brussels offices declined to comment and turned off the lights inside to avoid photographs taken through the window.
According to Follow The Money, an investigative journalism platform, one of the main suspects in the investigation is Valerio Ottati, 41, an Italian-Belgian lobbyist who joined Huawei in 2019.
Before becoming Huawei’s EU public affairs director, Ottati was an assistant to two Italian MEPs, both members of a European Parliament group dealing with China policy, Follow the Money reported.
This is the second corruption case to affect the EU Parliament in less than three years. In December 2022, the legislature was rocked by a corruption scandal in which Qatari officials were accused of bribing EU officials to downplay concerns about labor rights ahead of the soccer World Cup.
