EU Investement Bank revises rules as Chinese firm nears €320m project
The European Investment Bank (EIB) is updating how it awards EU-funded projects abroad after a China-linked company moved close to winning a major transport tender in Senegal, it told Euractiv.
The EU can block subsidised foreign bidders within the bloc, but has far less leverage over projects it finances abroad, leaving a gap between its internal rules and external spending.
“Currently, the EIB is revising its guide to procurement,” it said in a statement, adding it is looking to include “a reference to EU policies” to keep its work outside the EU aligned with them.
The review comes after outrage in Brussels over Chinese CRRC taking the lead over Sweden’s Scania in the competition for the public transport project in the capital, Dakar, as first reported by Euractiv.
The European Commission has also announced that it had blocked the same company from competing in a tender for a metro project in Lisbon after it found that the company had received state subsidies that…
