China’s CRRC drops bid for Lisbon metro deal as EU finds ‘billions’ in subsidies probe

Chinese railway giant CRRC has been forced out of a Lisbon metro contract in favour of a Polish firm, after a European Commission investigation found that foreign subsidies allowed CRRC to underbid rivals.

“The in-depth investigation confirmed these preliminary findings, revealing that the subsidies in question had indeed given the consortium an unfair competitive edge, to the detriment of other bidders taking part in the tender and the integrity of the EU’s internal market,” the European Commission said in a statement on Tuesday.

The Mota-Engil-led consortium, which submitted the lowest bid of €598.8 million for the construction and maintenance of the Portuguese capital’s new Violet Line, proposed replacing CRRC with Polish rolling stock manufacturer PESA – a commitment the European Commission accepted as sufficient to remove the distortion.

The China Chamber of Commerce to the EU (CCCEU) expressed its strong opposition and deep concern at the decision, arguing that the EU failed to adequately explain why a subcontractor holding less than 10 per cent of the contract value was deemed critical enough to warrant corrective action, the group said in a statement.

The CRRC took part in the consortium as a subcontractor to provide metro cars for the project – a role estimated to be worth around €50 million, or just a fraction of the total bid, according to the CCCEU.

CRRC Portugal did not reply immediately to a request for comment.

The tender process was launched by the Lisbon Metro in April 2025, and Brussels launched its in-depth investigation under the foreign subsidies regulation (FSR) into CRRC Portugal’s participation in November.

After CRRC Portugal withdrew from the bidding and said that it was “not in a position to obtain or share” information on other companies in the CRRC group, the European Commission decided to continue its probe, according to an EU official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Brussels was concerned that the firm would re-enter the bidding “through the back door”, as Mota-Engil kept the prices and technical arrangements that matched those offered by CRRC in its bid, the source said.

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