The European Commission on Saturday defended a probe it has launched into Nuctech, a Chinese company building security scanners for airports, after Beijing strongly criticised the probe.
The Commission officially started investigating Nuctech in December over concerns that it receives illegal state subsidies, after raiding the company’s European offices back in 2024. Nuctech belongs to a larger group which Beijing indirectly controls.
A Commission spokesperson on Saturday told Euractiv that requests for information, such as in the Nuctech probe, were “standard measures”.
The spokesperson added that Brussels’ Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR), upon which the Commission has based its investigation, “does not distinguish between companies based on their nationality or ownership and is consistent with the EU’s international obligations”.
The remarks come after China’s justice and commerce ministries this week urged individuals and organisations not to cooperate with the EU probe.
The FSR creates “trade and investment barriers”, the Chinese ministry of commerce said in a statement earlier on Saturday. Beijing added that it had advocated for “dialogue” but that the “EU persisted in its unilateral actions, going further and further down the wrong path”.
“[We] demand that no organisation or individual may implement or assist in the implementation of such measures,” it said, adding that European action targeting Nuctech “constituted undue extraterritorial jurisdiction measures”.
Vestager says probes into Chinese firms are not a message to Beijing
The EU’s recent spate of investigations into Chinese firms’ state subsidies and procurement practices is…
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