EU countries are taking a harder look at who builds, owns and works on key infrastructure like ports, IT and rail — and that concern is now spilling into a wave of legislation aimed at countries like China.

Sweden is the latest to move, proposing this week to give local authorities new powers to block “hostile states” from bidding on infrastructure if their involvement could threaten national security.

“It’s part of a defense issue,” a Swedish official told POLITICO, describing growing worries about countries like China gaining access to public infrastructure. “We are acting very quickly on that, since we see a risk that hostile states might try to infiltrate infrastructure such as ports, but also IT solutions and energy infrastructure.”

It’s also a worry in Poland, Austria and inside EU institutions — all of which are rushing to put in safeguards to block, or at least monitor, third-country investment in key tech and transport infrastructure.

What accelerated Sweden’s move was a recent EU court ruling involving Turkish and Chinese companies bidding on two railway projects. Judges concluded that suppliers from countries without a free-trade agreement with the EU do not enjoy the same rights as EU firms — a reading Stockholm took as both a green light and a warning signal.

Sweden’s new rules are due to take effect in 2027. No specific cases were cited, but the investigation repeatedly pointed to China — which also sits at the center of very similar concerns in Poland.

Warsaw has long been uneasy about the scale of Chinese involvement in its ports. A new draft bill put forward by the country’s president would “adapt the existing regulations concerning the operation of ports, and in particular the ownership of real estate located within the boundaries of ports.”

The president argued that the current model — state-owned port authorities holding land and infrastructure and leasing it long-term to terminal operators — needs tightening if the country wants to maintain control over assets of “fundamental importance to the national economy.”

Gen. Dariusz Łuczak, former head of Poland’s Internal Security Agency and now adviser to the Special Services Commission, told Polish media late last month that “the most important provisions are those concerning the early termination of perpetual use agreements.”

However, it’s unclear if the legislation will pass as President Karol Nawrocki is broadly opposed to the government led by Prime Minster Donald Tusk.

The EU is also moving.

Ana Miguel Pedro, a Portuguese member of the European Parliament with the center-right European People’s Party, told POLITICO in the spring that the growing presence of Chinese state-owned companies in European port terminals “is not just an economic concern, but a strategic vulnerability.”

Those concerns appear in the bloc’s new military mobility package, which calls for member countries to put in place “stricter rules on the ownership and control of strategic dual use infrastructure.” Transport Commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas also flagged the Chinese presence in ports and said it will feature in the European Commission’s upcoming ports strategy, due in 2026.

Austria has also been pushed into the debate after long-distance trains built by Chinese state-owned manufacturer CRRC rolled onto the Vienna-Salzburg line for the first time — triggering a political backlash.

The country’s Mobility Minister Peter Hanke said the EU must tighten procurement and digital-security rules for state-backed rail purchases — and Vienna plans to propose new legislation before the end of the year.

The Commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Industry is pushing Brussels to go even further.

The European Rail Supply Industry Association argued that the bloc’s procurement rules are relics of an earlier era and asked the Commission to update them so companies from countries that shut out EU bidders cannot freely compete for European contracts.

Sweden’s investigators saw the same risks.

“Third-country suppliers without an agreement should not be given a more advantageous position than they have today and than other suppliers have,” Anneli Berglund Creutz, who led the Swedish government’s procurement review, told reporters.

Contracting authorities, she added, should have the ability “to take into account the nationality of suppliers and to select suppliers from hostile states” — possibly excluding them “when that protects national security.”