Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music In dieser Sonderfolge spricht Gordon Repinski mit zwei Experten, die sich regelmäßig mit unsichtbaren, hybriden Angriffen beschäftigen: Sinan Selen, Präsident des Bundesverfassungsschutzes, und Marika Linntam, Botschafterin Estlands in Deutschland. Zusammen haben sie auf der Sicherheitstagung des Bundesverfassungsschutzes und des „Verbandes für Sicherheit in der Wirtschaft“ besprochen, wie Russland mit Nadelstichen versucht, die deutsche Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft zu destabilisieren. Während Estland durch jahrelange Erfahrung eine breite gesellschaftliche und wirtschaftliche Resilienz gegen Desinformation und Sabotage entwickelt hat, warnt Sinan Selen vor einem erheblichen Nachholbedarf in deutschen Unternehmen und der breiten Öffentlichkeit. Im Gespräch geht es deswegen auch darum, wie die Sensibilität gesteigert werden kann, ohne dabei paranoid zu werden. Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team liefern Politik zum Hören – kompakt, international, hintergründig. Für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Der Berlin Playbook-Newsletter bietet jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. ⁠Jetzt kostenlos abonnieren.⁠ Mehr von Host und POLITICO Executive Editor Gordon Repinski: Instagram: ⁠@gordon.repinski⁠ | X: ⁠@GordonRepinski⁠. POLITICO Deutschland – ein Angebot der Axel Springer Deutschland GmbH Axel-Springer-Straße 65, 10888 Berlin Tel: +49 (30) 2591 0 ⁠information@axelspringer.de⁠ Sitz: Amtsgericht Berlin-Charlottenburg, HRB 196159 B USt-IdNr: DE 214 852 390 Geschäftsführer: Carolin Hulshoff Pol, Mathias Sanchez Luna

Slovenia’s Prime Minister Robert Golob has urged European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to investigate accusations that Israeli spy firm Black Cube interfered in the country’s election campaign, according to a letter obtained by POLITICO. “Such interference by a foreign private company poses a clear hybrid threat against the European Union and its Member States, which negatively impacts or potentially threatens our common values, procedures and political processes,” Golob wrote.  “It is troubling that such a pattern of coordinated deceptive behavior by a foreign non-state actor again occurred just days before the national parliamentary elections, thus presenting systemic risks to Slovenia’s democratic processes,” he added. Slovenia goes to the polls Sunday in an election pitting the liberal Golob against right-wing populist Janez Janša, who currently has a narrow lead according to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls. Leaked audio and video recordings, published earlier this month and apparently designed to tie Golob’s government to corruption, showed prominent Slovenian figures apparently discussing illegal lobbying and the misuse of state funds. Slovenian authorities this week announced that four operatives of Black Cube, a private intelligence firm founded by former members of the Israel Defense Forces, had visited the country and conducted “illegal surveillance” and “wiretapping.” Representatives for Black Cube did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story. In his letter, Golob pointed to previous operations carried out by Black Cube, including in Romania and Hungary in the last decade, to highlight its ongoing interference. “Given the continuous, systemic operations performed by Black Cube and the recent reported operations, they pose a direct challenge to the newly established European Democracy Shield,” Golob said. “As the European Centre for Democratic Resilience began its operational work in February 2026, this case provides a critical test of its mandate to protect Member States against foreign interference.” “I urge the Commission to investigate the reports and refer the matter to the European Centre for Democratic Resilience for an immediate threat assessment,” he added.  The European Democracy Shield is an EU initiative aimed at protecting member countries from foreign interference and hybrid threats by strengthening monitoring, coordination and rapid response to disinformation and covert influence operations.

BLACK CUBE, LEAKED TAPES AND CORRUPTION: ISRAELI SPY FIRM CRASHES SLOVENIA’S ELECTION  Foreign interference looms over the vote after accusations that a private intelligence company meddled in the campaign.   By ALI WALKER, SEBASTIAN STARCEVIC and ANTOANETA ROUSSI in Ljubljana Illustration by Natália Delgado/POLITICO Slovenia’s election campaign was already steeped in acrimony.   Then operatives from a notable private intelligence company, founded by former members of the Israel Defense Forces, flew to Ljubljana in the depths of winter, Slovenian law enforcement authorities say.  The private jet that landed on a freezing December day was carrying Dan Zorella, CEO of Black Cube; Giora Eiland, former head of Israel’s National Security Council; and two other men, according to the authorities, who allege they were engaged in “covert surveillance and wiretapping.”  The Black Cube operatives now stand accused by Slovenian law enforcement of helping to leak recordings designed to undermine Prime Minister Robert Golob’s government by linking it to corruption, days before a knife-edge national election. The tapes show prominent Slovenian figures apparently discussing corruption, illegal lobbying and the misuse of state funds. Representatives for Black Cube did not respond to POLITICO’s requests for comment on the allegations. Slovenia goes to the polls Sunday for a vote that pits liberal Golob against the right-wing populist Janez Janša, who currently has a narrow lead according to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls. Golob has warned that victory for Janša — a pro-MAGA, four-time former premier — would threaten the fabric of the EU. For its part, Janša’s party routinely depicts Golob as a corrupt former energy tycoon.  The Black Cube allegations land at a moment of heightened anxiety in Europe over covert foreign interference in democratic elections, from influence operations to political sabotage. In Slovenia, they risk further polarizing a race that has come to symbolize a broader clash between liberal, pro-EU forces and an emboldened right-wing populist movement.  Golob’s left-liberal coalition and Janša’s Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) are currently looking to utilize the leaked tape scandal to buttress attacks on each other. The SDS says the recordings — which feature a former minister, a top lawyer and other prominent figures — are proof of corruption at the highest levels of Slovenian society; while Golob’s supporters say the scandal is evidence that Janša is collaborating with foreign entities to retake power.   “The fact that covert surveillance and wiretapping in this case involve a private intelligence agency from Israel points to something deeply troubling. This is not just another incident, it raises serious concerns about the integrity of democratic processes in Slovenia,” Golob said this week.   “Any attempt by foreign actors to interfere in elections in a democratic member state of the European Union is unacceptable,” he added.   During a press conference Wednesday afternoon, Vojko Volk, Slovenia’s state secretary for national and international security, said that Black Cube representatives visited the country four times and that on Dec. 11 a team, including Zorella, spent time on the street that is home to SDS headquarters — though he stopped short of saying they went into the building.   Janša has threatened to sue activist Nika Kovač — from the Institute 8 organization that lobbies on social issues — who helped publish the initial report alleging that Black Cube operatives had made repeated visits to Slovenia and met with SDS officials.  Former Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša attends a meeting in Brussels, Belgium on May 31, 2022. | Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images “Janez Janša will probably be surprised, but we are happy that the Slovenian Democratic Party will file lawsuits over revelations about the activities of the Israeli intelligence agency Black Cube in Slovenia,” Kovač told POLITICO. “We welcome all proceedings in which it can be revealed and clarified what this ‘Private Mossad’ was doing in Slovenia and with whom.”  Janša’s party said that “a monument should be erected in the middle of Ljubljana” in tribute to the Black Cube officials, if they had “truly uncovered all this corruption of unimaginable proportions.” On Wednesday night, Janša admitted that he had met with Black Cube’s Eiland, but said he could not recall on which date. ‘THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY’  Black Cube, a private intelligence firm founded in 2010, has offices in Tel Aviv, London and Madrid. It was started by Zorella and Avi Yanus, both of whom served in the Israel Defense Forces.   The firm’s methods — often rooted in human intelligence and undercover operations — have drawn sustained scrutiny, most notably in the case of convicted sex offender and Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.  He was accused of hiring Black Cube to monitor journalists and female accusers, using operatives with fabricated identities to extract information in what became a defining example of private espionage deployed with the aim of suppressing allegations. A Black Cube board member later apologized. Black Cube’s advisory orbit has included prominent former Israeli intelligence officials such as Meir Dagan and Efraim Halevy, reinforcing its image as part of a broader ecosystem in which statecraft techniques migrate into the private sector.  In 2022, Romanian prosecutors convicted Black Cube operatives, including Zorella, in absentia of spying on anti-corruption chief Laura Kövesi. The men struck a plea deal with prosecutors. The firm also targeted critics of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán using fake LinkedIn profiles; while recordings later surfaced in pro-government media. A company spokesperson said at the time that it “always operates in full compliance of the law.” Slovenia’s Intelligence and Security Agency (SOVA) delivered a report to the National Security Council this week, which endorsed the claims about Black Cube’s meddling in the campaign.  The agency’s director “briefed us on facts indicating direct foreign interference with the Slovenian elections,” Volk said Wednesday morning. According to the SOVA director, “this interference was most likely commissioned from within Slovenia. Based on the available data, representatives of the company Black Cube have visited Slovenia four times in the last six months.”  “Black Cube is known for releasing fabricated material at precisely planned times, in this case, just before the elections,” Volk added. “These activities are intended to discredit individuals politically, which may pose a threat to national security and influence democratic elections.”  OPPOSITION ATTACKS  Beyond the espionage claims, the polarized campaign has been marked by a familiar pattern of political attacks.  Member of the European Parliament Romana Tomc is pictured at a meeting in Brussels on Jan. 27, 2025. | Martin Bertrand/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images If the opposition gets into power, its first order of business is lowering taxes, said SDS MEP Romana Tomc, as she took aim at the governing coalition on finances.  “What we have now after four years of Golob’s government is economic decline,” Tomc told POLITICO. “He [Golob] raised taxes a lot, and we will do what we can to lower them, because we would like people to have more in their pockets, and not only in the state budget.”  Tomc, who is also vice president of the European People’s Party group, hit out at Golob’s recent assertion to POLITICO that Janša, along with Hungarian premier Viktor Orbán, “will try to break up the European Union itself.”  SDS wants to reform the bloc rather than destroy it, she argued. “Our party, with the leadership of Janša, we are really pro-, pro-, pro-European,” Tomc said.  “We are really trying to make Europe better, to make it more functional. And we have, of course, no intention of destroying Europe,” she added. “Being critical to some policies within Europe, I think this is completely normal.”  With days to go before the election, Tomc launched a campaign against the EU’s Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos, who hails from Golob’s party, arguing Kos misled the European Parliament when she denied collaborating with Yugoslavia’s secret police in her youth.  Europe’s biggest political group, the EPP, on Wednesday called for a special hearing in the European Parliament to grill Kos. ‘HISTORIC OPPORTUNITY’  During an interview at his party office in Ljubljana last month, Golob told POLITICO the election marked a “historic opportunity” for Slovenia to return the left-liberal coalition to power, which will “bring more stability to the country and most probably also to the neighborhood.”  Golob said he is determined to use a potential second mandate to drive forward a health care reform and boost the country’s economic competitiveness, after a first term that was marked by enduring troubles: Russia’s war on Ukraine; an energy crisis; and high inflation.  On Janša, Golob was scathing, accusing him of wasting public money and weaponizing law enforcement during his previous term in office. He also said that Janša would likely be inspired by U.S. President Donald Trump’s hard-line immigration policies.   “We have a far-right leader who has been in power for three terms already, every time was worse. So the first time he didn’t do the things that we are discussing, but every term he comes, it gets worse when it comes to civil rights and the misuse of the law enforcement,” he added.  Golob leads a left-liberal coalition that includes his Freedom Movement, the Social Democrats and The Left, but he said that he’s willing to expand the tent for a second term. “We are open to include any other party or partner that is willing to support the extension and completion of our reforms,” he said.   According to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls,Janša’s SDS leads the Freedom Movement by five percentage points, though Golob can remain in power by teaming up against him with other parties.  During the interview, before the Black Cube allegations, Golob had flagged what appeared to be increased online bot activity making its presence felt in the election campaign.  “Organized hybrid war started on social media, but we cannot attribute it yet to any state or political party — even though our right-populists are enjoying it very much and supporting it when it comes to sharing the information,” he said.  Ali Walker reported from Ljubljana. Seb Starcevic reported from Strasbourg. Antoaneta Roussi reported from Prague.  

BRUSSELS — European Union countries on Monday slapped new sanctions on hacking groups, including an Iranian group that targeted subscribers of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Capitals froze assets and banned doing business with Iranian company Emennet Pasargad, which in 2023 stole data of subscribers to the French magazine and advertised the data for sale on the dark web. Charlie Hebdo was targeted by terrorists in 2015 after publishing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed. Microsoft in 2023 pinned the data theft on Emennet Pasargad, which happened after the magazine published cartoons mocking then-Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Capitals also sanctioned Chinese company Integrity Technology Group and Chinese firm Anxun Information Technology, also known as i-Soon, and its co-founders Chen Cheng and Wu Haibo, who are banned from entering the EU, the EU sanctions listing showed. According to the details of the sanctions, Anxun Information Technology targeted “critical infrastructure and critical state functions” of EU countries and sold classified information as part of so-called hack-for-hire services.  The United States Department of Justice in March 2025 indicted 12 people involved in i-Soon for cyberattacks the U.S. said it had carried out at the behest of Chinese security services. Chinese security services “paid handsomely” for the data the groups stole, the department said.  Integrity Technology Group, the other Chinese company, facilitated the activities of a Chinese state hacking group dubbed Flax Typhoon, which security officials say has targeted organizations in Taiwan for espionage purposes. Flax Typhoon used Integrity’s products and technology to hack into more than 65,000 devices in six EU member countries, the Council of the EU said on Monday. The U.S. Treasury Department also sanctioned Integrity in January 2025. The United Kingdom hit both Chinese companies with sanctions late last year. 

LONDON — Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has welcomed an offer from MI5 to help political parties vet their election candidates as hostile states try to infiltrate British democracy. Last month MI5 — Britain’s domestic intelligence agency — said it would help political parties with candidate checks for potential foreign interference risks. A Reform spokesman told POLITICO the party would be “very interested” in taking up the offer, if it “comes to fruition.” Ken McCallum, the director general of MI5, made the offer at a cross-party briefing with U.K. political parties last month, alongside Security Minister Dan Jarvis, three people with knowledge of the meeting told POLITICO. The offer from McCallum is part of a wider effort by the U.K. government and security services to shore up British democracy amid a wave of espionage activity from hostile states. In the past six months, several foreign and U.K.-born citizens have been arrested on suspicion of working for Iran, Russia and China. Earlier this month three former Labour officials, including the husband of a sitting Labour MP and former candidate for North Wales police and crime commissioner, were arrested by counter-terrorism police on suspicion of spying for China. Last year, the former Reform UK leader in Wales Nathan Gill was jailed for accepting bribes to make pro-Russian statements while he was a member of the EU parliament for Reform’s precursor Brexit Party. Britain’s political parties have no standardized system for vetting those who want to become MPs. Each party has its own internal, and in some cases, external processes for probity checks. Reform leader Nigel Farage in 2024 blamed a “reputable vetting company” for oversights in helping sift its candidates ahead of the general election after one praised Hitler and backed Russia’s war in Ukraine. He apologized, adding: “We have been stitched up politically and that’s given us problems.” MI5’s role in vetting is limited to its own staff and certain levels of security clearance for specific government and official roles in Whitehall. Its offer to candidates is expected to be limited to helping parties assess foreign interference risks, rather than any official security clearance. POLITICO asked the six main Westminster parties if they will take MI5 up on its offer to assist in their vetting processes. The ruling Labour Party, the Conservatives, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats all declined to comment. The Scottish National Party did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The offer from Ken McCallum is part of a wider effort by the U.K. government and security services to shore up British democracy amid a wave of espionage activity from hostile states. | Jonathan Brady/PA WIRE/AFP via Getty A Reform UK spokesman said: “If this offer comes to fruition, we would be very interested in taking the MI5 up on it.  “We must do all we can to stamp out foreign interference in our politics. We have seen just last week with the Labour China spy scandal just how deeply embedded this issue is.” The government unveiled its Counter Political Interference and Espionage Action Plan last November. It includes an elections bill, which is currently making its way through parliament. An independent review into financial interference in U.K. democracy is examining the use of cryptocurrency. Ministers are also considering bringing in proscription-like powers to disrupt proxies and state-backed terror groups as part of the plan. A Government spokesperson said: “The Security Minister is coordinating an action plan to ensure we’re doing all we can to safeguard our democracy, including working directly with political parties to help them detect and deter interference and espionage. “We’re also strengthening rules on political funding, rolling out security advice for election candidates, and working with professional networking sites and think tanks to make them a more hostile operating environment for foreign agents.”

Germany’s data privacy authority on Thursday warned it can’t properly protect citizens from surveillance by the country’s intelligence services, right as Germany is moving to fortify its intelligence agency with sweeping new powers. “Citizens have virtually no means of defending themselves against intelligence measures that can deeply intrude on their privacy,” Louisa Specht-Riemenschneider, the head of the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (BfDI), warned after a court ruled against the commissioner’s request to get data on espionage activities. Germany is drafting laws to give its intelligence services vast new powers, in a historic shift that breaks with decades of strict limits on its espionage abilities, rooted in the country’s Nazi and Cold War past. Berlin’s plan to empower intelligence services comes as European leaders grow increasingly concerned that U.S. President Donald Trump could move to halt American intelligence sharing with Europe. To keep German spies in check, the country’s privacy regulator started a legal challenge against the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) after it refused to share details of how it hacked electronic devices of foreigners abroad and gathered data. On Thursday, an administrative court ruled the privacy regulator didn’t have legal standing to pursue the case, redirecting it to file a complaint with Germany’s chancellery instead. The ruling means “areas free from oversight will emerge” within German spy agencies, Specht-Riemenschneider said, calling the agencies’ data processing practices “secretive.” Germany’s BND has historically been far more legally constrained than intelligence agencies elsewhere, due to intentional protections put in place after World War II to prevent a repeat of the abuses perpetrated by the Nazi spy and security services Gestapo and SS. The agency was put under the oversight of the chancellery and bound to a strict parliamentary control mechanism. Germany’s stringent data protection laws — which are also largely a reaction to the legacy of the East German secret police, or Stasi — restrict the BND further. The agency must, for instance, redact personal information in documents before passing them on to other intelligence services, POLITICO reported. The German government is now reviewing those constraints and preparing an overhaul of intelligence powers. Chancellor Friedrich Merz wants to boost and unfetter his country’s foreign intelligence service, giving it much broader authority to perpetrate acts of sabotage, conduct offensive cyber operations and more aggressively carry out espionage. Specht-Riemenschneider called on legislators to amend intelligence laws to make sure her authority can challenge agencies’ data processing, because the spy agency “can now effectively decide for itself what I am allowed to inspect and what I can therefore monitor,” she said. Spy services across Europe have also started to build a shared intelligence operation to counter Russian aggression. The push for deeper intelligence cooperation accelerated sharply after the Trump administration abruptly halted the sharing of battlefield intelligence with Kyiv last March. The BND did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

DUBLIN — TikTok on Tuesday began a defense of how it handles Europeans’ privacy and data in a court case that will define how Chinese-owned companies in Europe deal with Beijing’s spying laws. The popular social media app is going head to head with the Irish Data Protection Commission — Europe’s most powerful privacy regulator, which oversees tech giants including Meta, X and Google. At stake in the Irish court battle is whether TikTok is allowed to transfer personal data of Europeans to China. The company, which is owned by Chinese giant ByteDance, is challenging a €530 million fine by the Irish regulator last year, when officials found it had allowed Chinese staff to access Europeans’ data — but failed “to verify, guarantee and demonstrate” that the data was properly protected. The Irish regulator wants TikTok to shut off data flows to China, unless it can prove its user information is safe from Beijing’s invasive surveillance and intelligence laws. The case is a major test for Europe’s privacy rulebook, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and how it protects Europeans when their data is transferred to China. It comes as Europe is facing transatlantic pressure, forcing the bloc to revisit trade ties with Beijing, despite long-held security concerns over the Chinese government’s data snooping practices. Lawyers faced off Tuesday in Dublin’s top courts building, for the start of a grueling 10-day hearing, sparring over how to interpret the limits of Chinese laws and the merits of TikTok’s data practices. “The consequences of [the Irish regulator’s] decision are immense, even for a very large organization like TikTok,” the firm’s senior counsel Paul Gallagher told the court, estimating the cost of complying with the Irish order to run as high as €5 billion. If judges side with the Irish regulator, that could ultimately force TikTok to unplug from China entirely to continue serving European users — just months after it split off its U.S. operation into a new app, under the control of a group of investors led by Silicon Valley giant Oracle and investment firms Silver Lake and MGX, to alleviate long-standing American data security concerns. TikTok has estimated that it would cost billions for it to comply with the Irish regulator’s demand to cut off data flows, and would involve relocating thousands of its workers outside of China. DATA ACCESS WOES The Irish regulator slapped TikTok with the privacy fine last May after it found the platform couldn’t guarantee the data of its 159 million monthly users in Europe were safe from China’s “problematic” surveillance laws. “This is all about what TikTok have described as the relevant laws, and what the [Data Protection Commission, or DPC] have described as the problematic laws,” said TikTok’s senior counsel Gallagher, who is also a former attorney general for the Irish government. “We don’t think they are problematic, because we think they don’t apply. The DPC thinks they are problematic, because it thinks they do apply.” The fine was one of the highest the Irish regulator has handed out since it started enforcing the GDPR in 2018. It followed years of scrutiny from security and privacy authorities, as Western governments increasingly viewed TikTok as a threat. TikTok is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, and staff in China have remote access to some European user data stored outside the country. In details shared with the Irish regulator during the investigation, TikTok said that the kind of data accessed by staff in China could include usernames and account holder details, interaction and activity data, and other personal data. It said the company didn’t intend to collect sensitive data about users, but it “may be collected incidentally or uploaded” by users, and staff needed to have “restricted and limited” access for research, security, analytics and other services. TikTok has said Chinese laws don’t apply to its data, which it stores outside of China, and has said it has never been asked to hand over data to Beijing’s authorities.  The firm already launched a massive campaign to alleviate European politicians’ security concerns in 2023, when it presented what it called “Project Clover,” a €12 billion plan designed to store data in Europe, overseen by a European security company. It mimicked a U.S. campaign called “Project Texas,” which promised similar controls to the U.S. in 2020. But the moves failed to persuade politicians. The EU already cracked down on TikTok for its own officials when it banned the app on their phones in 2023, a move that was followed by many governments across Europe. CHINA VS. US The TikTok case is also forcing Europe to deal with a blind spot: data flowing to China has, so far, been left largely unscrutinized. The EU has skirmished with American authorities for years over how to protect Europeans’ personal data from mass surveillance programs uncovered by whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013. Data transfer agreements crafted by the EU and U.S. have been repeatedly wiped out by Europe’s top court over surveillance concerns. For data flowing to China, though, few cases have tested how companies protect Europeans’ data when it comes within reach of Beijing’s surveillance authorities. The Irish regulator’s decision to fine TikTok meant the “screw is turning” on data flows to China, Joe Jones, research director at the International Association of Privacy Professionals, said after the decision came out. “We’ve had over a decade of EU-U.K., EU-U.S. fights and sagas on [data flows]. This is the first time we’ve seen anything significant on any other country outside of that transatlantic triangle — and it’s China,” Jones said.

Chinese technology giant Huawei is participating in 16 projects funded by the European Commission’s Horizon Europe research and innovation program despite being dubbed a high-risk supplier. The Commission restricted Huawei from accessing Horizon projects in 2023 after saying that it (and another Chinese telecom supplier, ZTE) posed “materially higher risks than other 5G suppliers” in relation to cybersecurity and foreign influence. However, public data reviewed by POLITICO’s EU Influence newsletter shows that Huawei still takes part in several projects, many of which are in sensitive fields like cloud computing, 5G and 6G telecom technology and data centers. These projects mean Huawei has been working alongside universities and tech companies in Spain, France, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Finland and Italy. It also has access to the intellectual property generated by the projects, as the contracts require the sharing of information as well as joint ownership of the results between partners. A Commission spokesperson confirmed that of the 16 projects, 15 were signed before the restrictions took place. The remaining project “was signed in 2025 and was assessed as falling outside the scope of the existing restrictions.” Many of the projects started in January 2023, with the contracts running out at the end of this year, while others will last until 2027, 2028 and 2030. “Huawei participates in and implements projects funded under Horizon Europe in a lawful and compliant manner,” a company spokesperson said. One of the projects is to develop data privacy and protection tools in the fields of AI and big data, along with Italy’s National Research Council, the University of Malaga, the University of Toulouse, the University of Calabria, and a Bavarian high-tech research institute for software-intensive systems. Huawei received €207,000 to lead the work on “design, implementation, and evaluation of use cases,” according to the contract for that project, seen by POLITICO. COMMISSION CRACKDOWN Last month the Commission proposed a new Cybersecurity Act that would restrict Huawei from critical telecoms networks under EU law, after years of asking national capitals to do so voluntarily. “I’m not satisfied [with] how the member states … have been implementing our 5G Toolbox,” the Commission’s executive VP for tech and security policy, Henna Virkkunen, told POLITICO at the time, referring to EU guidelines to deal with high-risk vendors. “We know that we still have high-risk vendors in our 5G networks, in the critical parts … so now we will have stricter rules on this.” The Commission is also working on measures to cut Chinese companies out of lucrative public contracts. Bart Groothuis, a liberal MEP working on the Cybersecurity Act, told POLITICO that the Commission should “honor the promises and commitments” it made “and push them out.” “They should be barred from participating. Period.” Huawei was also involved in an influence scandal last year, with Belgian authorities investigating whether the tech giant exerted undue influence over EU lawmakers. The scandal led to Huawei’s being banned from lobbying on the premises of the European Commission and the European Parliament.

ATHENS — A Greek court on Thursday sentenced four people, including two Israelis, to prison over a major wiretapping scandal involving the illegal use of spyware to target politicians, business leaders and journalists. The Greek spying affair, known as “Predatorgate,” erupted in 2022 when Nikos Androulakis, leader of the main opposition PASOK party and then a member of the European Parliament, discovered that illegal spyware known as Predator had been installed on his phone. The scandal is one of Europe’s most significant political crises involving the use of commercial hacking software. Spain, Hungary and Poland have faced similar controversies, with spyware such as Pegasus and Candiru found on the phones of politicians and activists. The European Parliament launched a formal inquiry into the use of such tools in 2022. Greek political parties have clashed over the affair for years, as an expanding list of cases revealed the highly invasive surveillance tool on the phones of opposition politicians, government ministers, military officials, journalists and business executives. The Greek government has denied using the illegal spyware. On Thursday, the court found four defendants guilty of “breaching the confidentiality of telephone communications,” “tampering with a personal-data filing system … on a repeated basis,” and “illegal access to an information system or data.” Those convicted include Tal Dilian, a former Israeli military officer and founder of Intellexa; his business partner Sara Aleksandra Fayssal Hamou; Felix Bitzios, a former deputy administrator and shareholder of Intellexa; and Yiannis Lavranos, whose company Krikel purchased the spyware. The defendants received combined prison sentences totaling 126 years and eight months, with eight years to be served. All four denied wrongdoing during the trial. The scandal has cast a long shadow over Greek politics. In 2024, Greece’s Supreme Court cleared the state intelligence service and political officials of wrongdoing, a decision that angered spyware victims and opposition parties. Androulakis said Thursday that “the fight will continue until all those involved in this murky affair are brought to justice.” He has appealed the Supreme Court’s decision to the European Court of Human Rights. The opposition party Syriza said in a statement: “The government and Kyriakos Mitsotakis himself can no longer hide. The important thing is that the case is reopening. The investigation into criminal liability and the upgrading of the indictment are starting again.” The four defendants did not respond to requests for comment.

BRUSSELS — European Parliament members on Monday slammed the Spanish government for using Huawei to store judicial wiretaps, with one leading lawmaker warning Madrid is putting its “crown jewels” at risk. The Spanish government has drawn criticism since the summer after it awarded a multimillion euro contract to Huawei for the storage of judicial wiretaps — a move that led the United States to threaten to cease intelligence sharing with Madrid. The outcry over Spain’s use of the Chinese tech giant for sensitive services lays bare how Europe continues to grapple with how to secure its digital systems against security threats. The European Union considers Huawei to be a high-risk supplier and wants to crack down on countries that still afford it broad market access. The EU proposed new draft cybersecurity legislation last month that, if approved, would force EU member countries to kick Huawei out of their telecoms networks, after years of trying to get capitals to ban the Chinese vendor voluntarily.  Lawmakers from several political groups said Spain’s contract with the Chinese tech giant could endanger the EU as a whole.  “We cannot operate in a union where one of the states actively strips high-risk vendors from its networks while another entrusts them with the crown jewels of its law enforcement,” said Markéta Gregorová, a Czech Pirate Party lawmaker who is part of the Greens group. Gregorová leads negotiations on a cyber bill that would give the EU the power to force Huawei and other — often Chinese — suppliers out of critical infrastructure in Europe. “When you introduce a high-risk vendor … we do not just risk a localized data breach, we risk poisoning the well of European intelligence sharing,” she said on Monday. Juan Ignacio Zoido Álvarez, a member of Spain’s center-right opposition party, said the decision puts “the entirety of the EU at risk.” The Spanish government has defended the contract it struck for storing wiretaps. Spain’s Interior Ministry said in a statement that the government had awarded a contract to “European companies,” which then bought storage products. “There is no risk to security, technological and legal sovereignty, nor is there any foreign interference or threat to the custody of evidence,” the ministry said. Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told the Spanish parliament last September that Telefónica, the country’s telecom champion, operated a state surveillance system called SITEL and that storage “cabinets” had been integrated into that system.   Bloomberg reported last July that Huawei equipment is not used for classified information, with one government official saying the storage “represents a minor part of a watertight, audited, isolated and certified system.” On Monday, Juan Fernando López Aguilar, a prominent member of the European Parliament for the Socialists and Democrats group and a member of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchéz’s party in Spain, defended Madrid’s contract and pushed back on EU moves to intervene on the issue. In terms of “security, espionage, or violation of technological sovereignty,” there is “no risk,” Aguilar said. Huawei did not respond to a request for comment.