The European Union (EU) is considering a mandatory ban on the member states using companies that might pose a security risk in their 5G networks, including China’s Huawei. According to a report by The Financial Times on Tuesday (June 6), the move comes as a response to increasing concerns in Brussels about certain national governments delaying action on the matter.
During an EU telecom minister’s meeting last Friday, the EU’s Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton noted that only a third of member countries banned Huawei from critical parts of the bloc’s 5G communications, despite recommendations by Brussels to exclude high-risk vendors from technology investments.
“This is too few. And it exposes the union’s collective security,” Breton said, as cited by The Financial Times.
Back in 2020, the EU had said that member-states could either restrict or exclude high-risk 5G vendors such as Huawei from core parts of their telecoms network and resisted pressure back then from the United States on Chinese telcos.
And as guidance fell short of a ban in 2020, the EU could introduce the mandatory ban on companies deemed to present a security risk, if member states, including Germany, continued to delay, the report added.
Will the ban come soon?
As per the report, the new rules forcing the ban are unlikely to come before the five-year term of the current European Commission ends. In Germany, officials expressed concerns about the ties between Deutsche Telekom and Huawei. In March, a government source told Reuters that Berlin had been considering a ban on certain components from Huawei and ZTE (another Chinese company) in its telecom networks.
‘Huawei opposes politicising cyber security evaluation’
Huawei, meanwhile, said that it opposed politicising cyber security evaluation, adding no court ever found that Huawei engaged in malicious intellectual property theft, or required Huawei to pay damages for infringement on others’ intellectual property.
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