The Council of State rejected an appeal by the Polish subsidiary of a Chinese multinational on Wednesday against its exclusion on national security grounds from a public contract for X-ray checks at Belgian ports and airports.
Beijing-based Nuctech Company is banned in some Western countries due to suspicions that it is collecting data on the movement of goods and people using passport numbers and fingerprints. A law in China requires Chinese companies to cooperate with its intelligence services.
The company’s presence in Belgian ports and airports, to check the contents of cars or containers, had been highlighted by De Standaard in February 2021, sparking controversy.
In March 2022, the Belgian state launched a contract for mobile X-ray scanners to check vehicles and containers by customs. In order to safeguard national security, Finance Minister Vincent Van Peteghem decided not to make the contract public and to invite only selected companies to submit a bid.
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Nuctech Warsaw, the Polish subsidiary of the Chinese multinational, was not one of those companies. It argued before the Council of State that its exclusion was contrary to public procurement legislation and rules on the free movement of goods within the European Union.
The Council of State did not consider these arguments to be serious and rejected the request for an emergency suspension of the Minister’s decision.
