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The European Parliament voted on Tuesday to lift the immunity of the Italian MEP Fulvio Martusciello, who is part of an investigation by Belgian prosecutors on alleged corruption and illicit lobbying by Chinese tech company Huawei.
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In the secret-ballot vote on Tuesday, 344 MEPs voted in favour of lifting his immunity, while 234 were against and 25 abstained.
Martusciello, a member of the European People’s Party (EPP), is believed to have been the promoter of a letter signed by eight MEPs in 2021, urging the EU Commission not ban the use of foreign 5G devices on the grounds of national security risks.
While the letter did not directly mention Huawei, prosecutors allege it could have been an attempt to influence EU policy according to the Chinese company’s interests.
A corrupt network led by Huawei lobbyist Valerio Ottati allegedly paid MEPs to support it. An EU Parliament official told Euronews that Martusciello wrote the letter and that his office tried to convince other fellow MEPs from the same delegation to sign it.
According to an immunity report drafted by Polish MEP Dominik Tarczyński, Martusciello tabled amendments to a draft resolution on EU competition policy that appear to have been “formulated in the interest of Huawei” between January 2021 and March 2021 – a timeframe that overlaps with the creation and dissemination of the letter.
In a previous statement to Euronews, Martusciello said: “I have never received either promises or pressure to sign the letter. I may have seen Valerio Ottati in my life. He constantly invited MEPs to events, including high-level gatherings with ministers and authorities. I never attended any of them, nor did anyone from my delegation”.
In March 2025, Belgian police searched Huawei offices in Brussels and the premises of the European Parliament, over allegations of bribing MEPs to influence EU decision-making that is said to have benefited Huawei.
Five people were then charged in a corruption probe.
In May, Belgian authorities asked the European Parliament to waive the immunity of five of its members, suspecting Huawei lobbyists had convinced them to back their interests through money transfers and football match attendances.
Italian EPP member Giusi Princi was immediately withdrawn from the list, as she was not even a MEP at the time of the alleged conduct.
The Parliament voted on Tuesday to maintain the immunity of the other three lawmakers, Italian EPP member Salvatore De Meo, Maltese Socialist MEP Daniel Attard and the Bulgarian Renew Europe MEP Nikola Minchev, citing “a flagrant scarcity of concrete elements in the request for the waiver”.
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