The European Commission has cleared the way for Lisbon's metro expansion to proceed after forcing a bidding consortium to drop its Chinese partner. The consortium Mota-Engil had included CRRC Tangshan, a Chinese state-linked rail manufacturer, whose alleged receipt of foreign subsidies was found to give it an unfair competitive advantage and distort the public tender. To resolve the issue, Mota-Engil agreed to replace CRRC Tangshan with Polish rolling stock maker PESA, allowing the procurement process to continue under the EU's Foreign Subsidies Regulation — a rule introduced nearly three years ago to prevent state-backed companies from competing unfairly in the EU single market.