EU Commission unveils joint security measures for 5G networks

The European Commission has published a ‘toolbox’ with provisional measures to help Member States achieve secure 5G networks. No measures have been formulated that exclude parties such as Huawei in their entirety.

The published toolbox states, among other things, that Member States must use a sufficient strategy for the implementation of 5G networks to arrive at different suppliers. In this way a strong dependence on a single company should be avoided. In doing so, Member States should avoid dependence on suppliers that pose a ‘high risk’. ‘Relevant restrictions’ must be set for such suppliers. Member States must also draw up risk profiles of suppliers and increase security requirements.

Huawei is not specifically mentioned. On the basis of these measures, Member States are free to do business with Huawei at least to a certain extent. The Chinese telecom company has announced in a response that it welcomes the European decision. According to Huawei, this will enable it to continue to participate in the roll-out of 5G in Europe. The company calls the toolbox a fact-based, non-bias approach that contributes to the security of 5G, and enables Europe to realize a safer and faster 5G network. Huawei already gave a similar response on Tuesday in response to the British decision not to exclude the manufacturer. The United Kingdom will not use Huawei equipment in its core network. British policy seems to be very much in line with the European Commission’s toolbox.

The European Commission says that member states have embraced and adopted the toolbox. In a document, the European Commission calls on Member States to take concrete and measurable steps by April 30 to implement the key measures. A report will then follow on 30 June on the status of this implementation process in each Member State. In principle, these are non-binding recommendations; Member States remain responsible for decisions on specific security measures.

The German Handelsblatt writes that the German federal government is in possession of evidence that would show that Huawei cooperated with the Chinese government. The newspaper says it has an internal, secret document from the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs. That document would say that Germany received American information at the end of last year that proved that Huawei is cooperating with Chinese intelligence services. The German ministry is said to use the American terminology of a ‘smoking gun’, but details of the evidence are not given. The document criticizes the course of Chancellor Merkel, who does not want to exclude Huawei entirely. Huawei says in a response that it does not cooperate with Chinese intelligence services and that the report in the Handelsblatt “repeats old and unfounded allegations without providing concrete evidence”.