The European Commission is raising its voice. Brussels considers that the two Chinese telecom companies Huawei and ZTE represent “a risk for the security of the Union”, according to a report published Thursday, June 15. The body will therefore no longer subscribe to mobile service offers based on the equipment of these two companies, and calls on the 27 member countries and the continent’s telecom operators to do the same.
“We cannot afford to maintain dependencies which could become weapons against our interests. It would be too great a risk for our common security,” said Thierry Breton, Commissioner for the Internal Market, during a press conference in Paris. Brussels.
Accused of espionage on several occasions, Chinese companies such as those pinned down by the Commission are in the sights of the authorities of several Western countries, in particular the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Within the EU, several countries have already banned Huawei from their 5G network, such as Denmark and Sweden.
The Commission “will take measures to avoid exposing its professional communications to the use of mobile networks which count Huawei and ZTE among their equipment suppliers.” This will apply to “all Commission sites, including offices in Member States.” This line should be applied to “all relevant EU funding programs and instruments.”
“Significantly higher risks than other 5G providers”
The European Union is thus revising its toolbox for the cybersecurity of 5G networks, which dates from 2020. The objective was to prevent any risk of espionage and sabotage. Three years later, the Commission thus directly names the Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE, which “present significantly higher risks than other 5G suppliers”, as stated in the press release which followed the meeting.
In all, twenty-four of the twenty-seven EU Member States have already implemented the 2020 recommendations in their national legislation. “To date, only ten of them have used these prerogatives to restrict or exclude high-risk suppliers. This is too slow. This poses a major security risk and exposes the collective security of the Union”, said estimated Thierry Breton.
The day after this announcement, Portugal has already said it is ready to remove Huawei from the 5G network. The country on the Iberian Peninsula had become one of the most welcoming to Chinese investment since the 2011 financial crisis.