Dirty games in Brussels and war games in Europe

EU Confidential

POLITICO

Politics, News Commentary, News

4.4 • 175 Ratings

🗓️ 21 March 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A lobbying frenzy, secret perks, and now police raids. Huawei’s cozy ties in Brussels have exploded into a full-blown corruption scandal. As the European Parliament tries to rehabilitate its image post Qatargate, lawmakers are once again at the center of allegations. With offices sealed and arrests made, there are serious questions about how deep Beijing’s influence really runs. Host Sarah Wheaton breaks it all down with POLITICO's cybersecurity and intelligence reporter, Antoaneta Roussi, and Laurens Cerulus, POLITICO's cybersecurity editor. Meanwhile, over in Berlin, the Bundestag made a historic move: voting to break from Germany’s long-standing fiscal conservatism. Get ready for unprecedented borrowing to bolster defense spending, aligning Germany with the EU's broader defense initiatives. POLITICO’s Chris Lunday joins us from Berlin to explain what it means for Germany and Europe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode is brought to you by Vanta.
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0:22.2	help your team stay compliant. Head to vanta.com slash Spotify to learn more.
0:28.9	Free phones, football games, and all expense paid trips to China. These are the types of goodies
0:37.4	you can expect if you're a European lawmaker as gifts from
0:40.4	Huawei, the Chinese telecoms giant.
0:44.0	All part of its lobbying pitch.
0:48.3	But now it's looking like that generosity may have veered into corruption.
0:54.0	With police raiding homes,
0:56.2	sealing the offices of parliamentary assistance,
0:59.0	and making arrests of lobbyists connected to Huawei.
1:03.4	This latest bribery scandal is a juicy story
1:06.4	with major implications for geopolitics,
1:09.1	cybersecurity, and voters' ability to trust Brussels.
1:16.3	People have been pretty paranoid about Huawei's ties to the Chinese Communist Party
1:20.8	since the first Trump administration put pressure on European governments to literally cut the cable.
1:26.5	And now a set of criminal allegations is only fueling suspicions of nefarious interference
1:32.1	and dirty lobbying.
	...

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