Hi, hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can. OK, thank you.

I have a question about the,

Chinese companies, and the metro in Lisbon.

I know this is, quite some while ago, but still, There are many Chinese companies acting in Europe that have strong relations with the Chinese government and there is, there was this case where the Commission was interfering,

about the Lisbon Metro contract, It's the very,

it's the first very significant case in which the Commission is interfering to exclude such a Chinese company from benefiting directly from EU taxpayers' money.

In this case,

the beginning of a new maybe and more thoughtful approach to protect the European market from Chinese state companies' interference.

Would you mind giving us A bit more explanation on this. Thank you.

Thank you, Ana,

and I'd ask also Ricardo to give a bit of the background and the context so that it's clear to everyone and it's Ricardo actually stepping in for Siobhan today. Ricardo, thank you and good afternoon, Ana.

It's also an opportunity to speak about a case relating to my hometown, which doesn't happen very often.

So I think speaking generally about the foreign subsidies regulation,

the idea here of course is to support the internal market and this by setting up a framework that allows to address any distortions which are caused directly or indirectly by foreign subsidies and all of this to maintain a level playing field in the single market.

Now, concretely on the case you mentioned, the Commission started in November 2025, an in-depth investigation, relating to Portugal's CRRC,

which is participating as a main subcontractor in a tender presented by a consortium led by a company called Mota-engil.

And we were looking into whether this company had benefited, the subcontractor had benefited from foreign subsidies that would distort the internal market,

and the tender in question related to the construction of a new metro line in Lisbon,

the so-called Lisbon purple metro line.

So the Commission carried out an investigation into this to understand, several things, in particular the tender procedure.

To assess whether they were indeed foreign subsidies granted to Portugal's CRRC,

and to determine whether awarding the contract to the consortium led by Mota-engil would indeed impact the internal market.

And just a few weeks ago on the 21st of April, the Commission concluded its investigation,

to a final decision, with a decision including binding commitments by the company.

And in essence what this means is that the project.

Can proceed because the contractor has committed to replacing the company that was the beneficiary of the,

the foreign subsidies that we found distortive with an alternative subcontractor.

So in this sense, Metropolitan Lisboa, the contracting entity, now has the possibility of awarding the,

the contract to the construction and design of the purple metro line to the Mota-engil Consortium, should it still wish to do so.

Coming back to more generally, what this means is that we will, just as in that case, we will continue to enforce our rules,

including the foreign subsidies regulation to protect the integrity of the single market and to ensure that this level playing field that we speak about so often is indeed still applicable for all companies doing business in the EU.

So in short, we will act when we need to.

A concrete example of the application of the Foreign subsidies regulation.

Other questions to Ricardo today also covering for Siobhan's areas. Internal market and industry. I have one question online.

Let's see if it's for you, Ricardo. Angelo Di Mambro.

Ángel You want to ask your question?

Maybe not yet. Tommaso Foti.