Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Football tickets, smartphones and several thousand euros are at the centre of a corruption probe into Chinese technology group Huawei, accused of greasing the palms of European parliament workers to promote its interests.Belgian authorities are investigating Huawei lobbyists and EU parliamentary assistants for allegedly exchanging gifts for political favours, at a time when the company was lobbying to not be excluded from the rollout of 5G infrastructure in the bloc.The investigation was launched earlier this month, and Belgian authorities last week arrested four people on charges of corruption and being a member of a criminal organisation. A fifth person was charged with money laundering but released after questioning.Among the arrested suspects is a lobbyist for Huawei who used to work as an assistant in the European parliament. He is suspected of orchestrating the payment of bribes to parliament workers — notably to secure support for a letter several MEPs signed defending the Chinese company’s interests.He did not respond to requests for comment. His lawyer declined to comment.The letter, signed by eight EU lawmakers and sent to the European Commission in January 2021, warns about the “politicisation of the deployment of 5G technology” and criticises the ban of foreign 5G devices based out of an “unsubstantiated fear of national security risks”. Several EU countries have banned or restricted Huawei from their telecommunications networks over national security concerns, and the commission has described the company as posing “higher risks” than other telecoms suppliers.A whistleblower complaint sent to the NGO Transparency International in 2021, seen by the Financial Times, alleges Huawei’s Brussels office worked together with an Italian MEP who was paid €15,000 for signing the letter, with an additional €1,500 for every additional signatory. The Italian MEP has not been named as a suspect in the probe. He told the FT his assistant was “accused of having received a €1,000 bank transfer from a former colleague, allegedly intended to pay other unidentified members of the European parliament”. The MEP said the Huawei employee was “a complete stranger to me — I may have seen him once, at most”. “He was someone who used to invite all MEPs to events around the world. Neither I nor anyone from my delegation has ever accepted an invitation or anything else from him,” the MEP said.People familiar with the investigation told the FT that the whistleblower complaint, which mentions the arrested Huawei lobbyist, was at the origin of the Belgian probe. An arrest warrant for a parliament worker detained in Italy, cited by La Repubblica and other media, mentions the same sums as the whistleblower complaint.Two people familiar with the investigation said the alleged bribes also included offers of Huawei smartphones and tickets to see a match of the local Anderlecht football team.In addition to the four people arrested in Belgium, a current and a former employee of the Italian MEP were arrested in Italy and France.Huawei has launched an intense lobbying campaign, with dozens of meeting requests sent to the parliament’s president, Roberta Metsola.“I have received a number of different meeting requests from Huawei representatives since becoming vice-president and later president of the parliament and declined them all,” Metsola told the FT.The parliament said it had suspended access for all Huawei representatives and “co-operates fully with the judicial authorities”.Huawei declined to comment and referred its previous statement that it “takes these allegations seriously” and the company “has a zero-tolerance policy towards corruption or other wrongdoing”.The Belgian federal prosecutor’s office declined to comment.The case will further heighten scrutiny at the European parliament as the Qatargate corruption scandal, in which some MEPs were accused of accepting bribes by Qatar and other countries in exchange for political favours, is unresolved and suspects await trial.“It’s almost as if they’ve settled into a corruption fatigue,” said Nick Aiossa, head of Transparency International, which received the whistleblower complaint about Huawei. He said even if the sums in the Chinese company’s case appeared small, “at the end of the day, it’s bribery”.
