Electric car giant BYD has become the first Chinese business to be raised in the European Parliament over allegations of labor abuses in Hungary, CNBC has learned, following a watchdog’s investigation into working conditions at the site.

Contractors hired to build BYD’s factory in Hungary allegedly kept thousands of employees working seven days a week, with shifts lasting more than 12 hours a day, according to a report published on April 14 by New York-based watchdog China Labor Watch (CLW). The group said it interviewed 50 workers and visited the factory site three times since October 2025.

China Labor Watch, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization that has tracked worker conditions since its founding in 2000, shared the report’s findings with EU government representatives. Earlier this month, three members of the European Parliament formally asked the European Commission about the alleged labor abuses in Hungary.

The allegations by China Labor Watch mark the first time claims of labor abuses linked to a Chinese-owned auto business manufacturing in the European Union have been brought to the attention of the European Commission, according to checks by CNBC. 

In February, a worker reportedly died on-site during a crane operation. Citing conversations with workers, CLW founder Qiang Li told CNBC there had been more deaths on site.

He added that, based on conversations with workers, broader medical support was inadequate as individuals were not always employed on work visas with corresponding medical insurance.

Hungary’s National Ambulance Service told CNBC Thursday that since Feb. 1, emergency medical services were called to the factory site 12 times, with one death. 

The latest allegations come as BYD has expanded into an automotive powerhouse, surpassing Tesla as the world’s largest electric car manufacturer in 2025. BYD is among a wave of Chinese companies expanding overseas, aiming to sell more than a million cars outside China this year as sales in its home market slump.

One contractor named in the report, AIM Construction Hungary, is a subsidiary of Jinjiang Construction Group — the same firm linked to a 2024 scandal at BYD’s factory in Brazil that national labor authorities said, following investigations, involved conditions “analogous to slavery.” 

BYD claimed in December 2024 that it stopped working with Jinjiang Construction’s Brazilian subsidiary in the wake of the scandal. But the CLW report allegations indicate BYD hired another subsidiary of the same Jinjiang group to build the factory in Hungary.  The report said CLW reviewed a sample labor contract for jobs at BYD’s Hungary factory, which included the option of being sent to Brazil and Turkey, where BYD is also building a factory.

AIM Construction Hungary was previously known as China Jinjiang Construction Hungary, according to company records from Hungary’s Ministry of Justice, accessed through an authorized data provider.

BYD and the Jinjiang entities did not respond to CNBC’s requests for comment. Authorities in the EU also did not respond.

The facility in the southern Hungarian city of Szeged is one of five BYD sites in Hungary, where the automaker established its European headquarters nearly a year ago during a visit by chairman Wang Chuanfu.

Forced to stay

The EU raised tariffs on China-made electric cars in 2024, in a bid to localize production. But China-made vehicles still climbed to a record 9.3% of new cars sold in the bloc in December, according to Rhodium Group.

BYD is rapidly growing its market share. New BYD cars registered in the EU more than doubled in the first two months of the year to 29,291, exceeding Tesla and gaining 1.8% of the market, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association.

By model, BYD’s Seal U ranked third in January registrations, behind models from Renault and Skoda, according to European Commission data. More than two-thirds of new passenger cars sold in Europe in January were electric.

Hungary received the bulk of China’s growing automotive investment in Europe over the last three years, according to Rhodium Group data.

BYD’s Szeged factory is slated to produce 300,000 cars per year at full capacity, though the timeline to reach that target is unclear.

As construction of the factory progressed, workers, mostly from China, were allowed to rest only when inclement weather halted work, according to CLW.

Managers “wanted to begin production of cars in January [2026], so they were rushing the project’s timeline — they weren’t letting workers leave,” Li said in Mandarin remarks translated by CNBC.

The Szeged facility manufactures BYD’s Dolphin Surf model, according to a company statement citing BYD Executive Vice President Stella Li. Local media reported in January that trial production had begun.

CLW’s Li said the contractors used a range of financial levers to keep workers on-site. Some were promised free plane tickets home if they worked for more than six months; others had wages withheld until their contracts were fulfilled, or incurred miscellaneous charges such as recruitment fees even before arriving on-site, according to the report.

Employees were directed to tell labor inspectors that they only worked “five days per week, eight hours per day, with one hour of overtime,” the report said. CLW alleged their actual working hours directly violated Hungary’s Labor Code — which limits working hours to eight per day, and no more than 48 hours a week — and that their conditions resemble the International Labor Organization’s definition of forced labor.

When CNBC contacted Hungary’s National Directorate-General for Aliens Policing about the allegations, the government department said it “took the necessary measures within the scope of its authority to conduct examinations of the matters described in the [CLW’s] submissions.”

Political fallout

In Brazil, BYD’s labor issues have led to political ripple effects.

Luiz Felipe Brandao de Mello, head of Brazil’s agency tasked with enforcing national labor standards, was removed from his post, according to an official government gazette. Reuters reported, citing two sources close to the matter, that de Mello lost his position due to a decision to add BYD to a blacklist restricting its access to loans.

Brazil’s labor ministry had added BYD to the list days earlier — only to have a Brazilian court reverse that decision until a final ruling was made.

Brazil’s national association of labor inspectors did not respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.

CNBC

Pope Leo XIV has arrived in Algeria for the first papal visit to the country, calling for peace on the opening stop of a tour of Africa that signals the continent’s growing importance to the Catholic church.

The 11-day trip, which will include stops in Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea, is the longest by Pope Leo since being elected to the papacy in May last year.

The choice to visit Africa sends a powerful signal that the continent is one of the church’s top priorities, according to academics and theologians.

Adriaan van Klinken, a professor of religion and African studies at the University of Leeds, said this reflected shifting demographics, with Africa home to one of the fastest-growing Catholic populations and accounting for about 20% of Catholics worldwide. By contrast, the Catholic population in western Europe is in decline.

“Africa is the site of vitality, of growth, of the future of the church,” Van Klinken said.

In the last year alone, 14 new dioceses have been created across Africa, with the Catholic population growing by 7 million, according to John Pontifex, from the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need UK. “A focus on Africa this early on in Pope Leo’s pontificate no doubt reflects a sense that in terms of Catholicism this is a continent that is coming of age,” he said.

The pope, on arrival at Algiers international airport on Monday, was welcomed by Algeria’s president, Abdelmadjid Tebboune. He was later taken to the Maqam Echahid, a monument that commemorates those who died in the 1954-62 Algerian war for independence against French colonial rule.

Father Peter Claver Kogh, the rector of the Basilica of Our Lady of Africa in Algiers, described the visit as a moment to strengthen bonds between Christian and Muslim communities, and solidify “the desire to have a climate of peace and tolerance among these two religions”.

He added: “That is what the world needs now – a world of fraternal living and living in harmony. That will be the utmost importance of this visit for Christians and Muslims who are here, and all those who desire to live in peace and harmony.”

For Austen Ivereigh, a biographer of Pope Francis, the trip signals continuity with his predecessor’s priorities. In 2019, Francis broke new ground with the joint “human fraternity” document signed with leading Muslim figures. “Leo will want to continue that all-important alliance in building a new world order of peace,” Ivereigh said.

Pontifex said the trip was not just about interfaith relations, but also a sign that the pope remained committed to freedom of religion and belief. “His visit comes at a time when religious freedom in Algeria, be it for Christians, Ahmadi Muslims and more liberal Muslims, has declined in recent years, according to our research.”

The trip has also been viewed as an opportunity to spotlight communities with long histories of injustice and exploitation who are often overlooked by the west.

Lucy Esipila, the regional coordinator for Caritas Africa, said she believed the pope’s visit would have a profound impact on Catholic communities in the region. “At a time when many African nations continue to face conflict, debt burdens, and widening inequalities, this apostolic journey is a powerful expression of synodality, of ‘walking together’ as a global church that listens to voices from the peripheries.”

Algeria is the only Muslim-majority country on the pope’s tour. While its Catholic population is relatively small, the country holds particular significance for Pope Leo as the birthplace of Saint Augustine. Leo is the first pontiff from the Augustinian order, a theological tradition that emphasises a commitment to “live together in harmony”.

Prof Anna Rowlands, the holder of the St Hilda chair in Catholic social thought and practice at Durham University, said: “Starting his visit in Algeria shows the other side of African Christianity that Leo is also deeply attuned to: its ancient legacy.”

North Africa was home to some of the earliest Christian communities before the arrival of Islam and remains central to the church’s intellectual and theological heritage.

Rowlands added that as the former head of the Augustinian order, Pope Leo, then Friar Robert Prevost, travelled frequently to African communities. “The church in Africa is well known to him – probably better known than to any pope in the modern era.”

The decision to make these African countries the focus of his longest trip so far as pope comes alongside his decision not to visit the US. “That’s the unspoken part of this,” said Dr Miles Pattenden, a historian of the Catholic church at the University of Oxford.

Pope Leo not only declined an invitation to the US, Pattenden said, but on 4 July, American independence day, he will be making a visit to the Italian island of Lampedusa, which is the place of arrival for many Africans making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean.

“He’s sending an extremely powerful message, which President Trump obviously understands, and that may explain some of his bombastic criticisms of the pope over the past few days,” Pattenden said.

That contrast appears to speak directly to the communities Leo is seeking to reach.

“It’s a feeling of joy,” Father Kogh said of hearing Leo address the people of Algeria. “I’m so glad to have heard that message, because it was what I was expecting: a message of peace, and a call to coexistence and living in fraternity. So my joy redoubles.”

The Guardian

Emmanuel Macron has sharply criticised Donald Trump’s inconsistent and often contradictory pronouncements on the Iran war and Nato, saying if “you want to be serious” it was better not to come out with a something different every day.

“There is too much talk … and it’s all over the place,” the French president said on Thursday during a state visit to South Korea. “We all need stability, calm, a return to peace – this isn’t a show!”

Macron added: “You have to be serious. When you want to be serious, you don’t go around saying the opposite every day of what you just said the day before. And perhaps you shouldn’t talk every day.”

Macron also mounted a strong defence of Nato, accusing Trump of undermining the transatlantic defence alliance through repeated remarks questioning the United States’ commitment to its continued membership.

“I believe organisations and alliances like Nato are defined by what is left unsaid – that is, the trust that underpins them,” he said. “If you cast doubt on your commitment every day, you erode its very substance.”

The comments follow mixed messages this week from the US president and others in Washington on the progress of the war, as well as criticism of European leaders for declining to back it and suggestions that the US might leave Nato.

Trump has suggested variously that the war was as good as won and the US did not need the support of its allies; that he expected allies to join the US military operation; and that they should act alone and “go get their oil” in the strait of Hormuz.

He also said this week at a private White House lunch that Nato had “treated us very badly” and “will be treating us badly again if we ever need them”. In comments to Reuters, he said he was “absolutely without question” considering leaving.

He told the Daily Telegraph that a US exit was “beyond consideration”, calling the organisation a “paper tiger”, and has elsewhere criticised the defence alliance for its reluctance to support the month-old war, labelling its members “cowards”.

Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, this week also suggested the US would “re-examine” whether the alliance that was still serving US interests, while Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, declined to confirm the US would defend Nato allies in the event of an attack.

Nato’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, is to visit Washington next week to try to repair relations, and other European leaders have defended the alliance, with the UK’s Keir Starmer calling it “the single most effective military alliance the world has ever seen”.

Two US senators, Republican Mitch McConnell and Democrat Chris Coons, said in a joint statement late on Wednesday that the Senate would “continue to support the alliance for the peace and protection it provides” the US, Europe and the world.

While Trump did not mention Nato in an evening address to the nation on Wednesday night, the repeated remarks from Washington have further strained transatlantic relations already damaged by the US president’s attempted Greenland grab in February.

Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, said on Thursday Trump’s repeated threats to withdraw from Nato, along with the prospect of a “massive” energy crisis in Europe and other factors, all looked like a “dream plan” for Russia’s president Vladimir Putin.

EU diplomats said Trump’s increasingly frequent attacks on Nato were “nothing very new” and largely reflected “the difficulty of the situation he’s landed himself in”. One official said they would start to worry “when the paperwork actually goes in”.

Congress passed legislation in 2023 that would prevent any president from pulling out of Nato without its approval. Nato’s mutual defence clause requires all members to respond to an attack on one, but does not imply support for a unilateral offensive.

Many EU leaders are under political pressure over the war, which is deeply unpopular in Europe and has sparked a surge in energy prices and rising inflation since Iran effectively shut the strait of Hormuz, which carries about one-fifth of the world’s oil.

Trump said on Wednesday he may end the war without a deal and told countries that rely on fuel shipments through the strait to “just grab it”. European and other states have said they will only help secure the strait if there is a ceasefire.

With pressure growing, about 40 countries on Thursday explored ways to restore freedom of navigation to the waterway during online talks. The UK, which convened the talks, said they were focused on diplomatic and economic tools.

France said the process would be multi-phased and could not begin until hostilities had calmed or ended. “It can only be done in consultation with Iran,” Macron said, adding that Paris considered a military operation to free the strait “unrealistic”.

Macron, who said remarks by Trump poking fun at the French president’s marriage were “neither elegant nor up to standard” and did not “merit a response”, also said US and Israeli strikes would not resolve the issue of Tehran’s nuclear programme.

“A targeted military action, even for a few weeks, will not allow us to resolve the nuclear issue in the long term,” he said. “If there is no framework for diplomatic and technical negotiations, the situation can deteriorate again in a few months.”

Iran’s armed forces responded to Trump on Thursday with a warning for the US and Israel of “more crushing, broader and more destructive” attacks.

The war will continue until the “permanent regret and surrender” of Iran’s enemies, said Ebrahim Zolfaqari, the spokesperson for the Iranian military’s Khatam al-Anbiya central headquarters, in a statement carried by Iranian media.

Trump said in his address on Wednesday that the US was “very close” to achieving its objectives but attacks would intensify and Iran would be brought “back to the stone ages, where they belong” unless Tehran agreed a negotiated settlement.

“Messages have been received through intermediaries, including Pakistan, but there is no direct negotiation with the US,” Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmaeil Baqaei, was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency on Thursday.

The Guardian

Emmanuel Macron has sharply criticised Donald Trump’s inconsistent and often contradictory pronouncements on the Iran war and Nato, saying if “you want to be serious” it was better not to come out with a something different every day.

“There is too much talk … and it’s all over the place,” the French president said on Thursday during a state visit to South Korea. “We all need stability, calm, a return to peace – this isn’t a show!”

Macron added: “You have to be serious. When you want to be serious, you don’t go around saying the opposite every day of what you just said the day before. And perhaps you shouldn’t talk every day.”

Macron also mounted a strong defence of Nato, accusing Trump of undermining the transatlantic defence alliance through repeated remarks questioning the United States’ commitment to its continued membership.

“I believe organisations and alliances like Nato are defined by what is left unsaid – that is, the trust that underpins them,” he said. “If you cast doubt on your commitment every day, you erode its very substance.”

The comments follow mixed messages this week from the US president and others in Washington on the progress of the war, as well as criticism of European leaders for declining to back it and suggestions that the US might leave Nato.

Trump has suggested variously that the war was as good as won and the US did not need the support of its allies; that he expected allies to join the US military operation; and that they should act alone and “go get their oil” in the strait of Hormuz.

He also said this week at a private White House lunch that Nato had “treated us very badly” and “will be treating us badly again if we ever need them”. In comments to Reuters, he said he was “absolutely without question” considering leaving.

He told the Daily Telegraph that a US exit was “beyond consideration”, calling the organisation a “paper tiger”, and has elsewhere criticised the defence alliance for its reluctance to support the month-old war, labelling its members “cowards”.

Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, this week also suggested the US would “re-examine” whether the alliance that was still serving US interests, while Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, declined to confirm the US would defend Nato allies in the event of an attack.

Nato’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, is to visit Washington next week to try to repair relations, and other European leaders have defended the alliance, with the UK’s Keir Starmer calling it “the single most effective military alliance the world has ever seen”.

Two US senators, Republican Mitch McConnell and Democrat Chris Coons, said in a joint statement late on Wednesday that the Senate would “continue to support the alliance for the peace and protection it provides” the US, Europe and the world.

While Trump did not mention Nato in an evening address to the nation on Wednesday night, the repeated remarks from Washington have further strained transatlantic relations already damaged by the US president’s attempted Greenland grab in February.

Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, said on Thursday Trump’s repeated threats to withdraw from Nato, along with the prospect of a “massive” energy crisis in Europe and other factors, all looked like a “dream plan” for Russia’s president Vladimir Putin.

EU diplomats said Trump’s increasingly frequent attacks on Nato were “nothing very new” and largely reflected “the difficulty of the situation he’s landed himself in”. One official said they would start to worry “when the paperwork actually goes in”.

Congress passed legislation in 2023 that would prevent any president from pulling out of Nato without its approval. Nato’s mutual defence clause requires all members to respond to an attack on one, but does not imply support for a unilateral offensive.

Many EU leaders are under political pressure over the war, which is deeply unpopular in Europe and has sparked a surge in energy prices and rising inflation since Iran effectively shut the strait of Hormuz, which carries about one-fifth of the world’s oil.

Trump said on Wednesday he may end the war without a deal and told countries that rely on fuel shipments through the strait to “just grab it”. European and other states have said they will only help secure the strait if there is a ceasefire.

With pressure growing, about 40 countries on Thursday explored ways to restore freedom of navigation to the waterway during online talks. The UK, which convened the talks, said they were focused on diplomatic and economic tools.

France said the process would be multi-phased and could not begin until hostilities had calmed or ended. “It can only be done in consultation with Iran,” Macron said, adding that Paris considered a military operation to free the strait “unrealistic”.

Macron, who said remarks by Trump poking fun at the French president’s marriage were “neither elegant nor up to standard” and did not “merit a response”, also said US and Israeli strikes would not resolve the issue of Tehran’s nuclear programme.

“A targeted military action, even for a few weeks, will not allow us to resolve the nuclear issue in the long term,” he said. “If there is no framework for diplomatic and technical negotiations, the situation can deteriorate again in a few months.”

Iran’s armed forces responded to Trump on Thursday with a warning for the US and Israel of “more crushing, broader and more destructive” attacks.

The war will continue until the “permanent regret and surrender” of Iran’s enemies, said Ebrahim Zolfaqari, the spokesperson for the Iranian military’s Khatam al-Anbiya central headquarters, in a statement carried by Iranian media.

Trump said in his address on Wednesday that the US was “very close” to achieving its objectives but attacks would intensify and Iran would be brought “back to the stone ages, where they belong” unless Tehran agreed a negotiated settlement.

“Messages have been received through intermediaries, including Pakistan, but there is no direct negotiation with the US,” Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmaeil Baqaei, was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency on Thursday.

The Guardian