A senior lawmaker from Angela Merkels Christian Democratic Union (CDU) said Thursday the German chancellor was not considering ratcheting up security restrictions for the 5G network that would further limit Huaweis access to the countrys telecoms network.
Norbert Röttgen, chair of the German parliaments foreign affairs committee, at the same time criticized Merkel for caving in to economic pressure from Beijing to not erect further barriers for the Chinese telecoms vendor.
The German telecom networks agency last month released a new “security catalogue,” which critics say lacks teeth because it only obliges Huawei to sign a “no spy” clause while generally opening 5G tenders to the Chinese telecoms firm. Merkel said at a press conference in Berlin late last week that “the IT security law and all corresponding security requirements will be significantly tightened in connection with 5G.”
According to Röttgen, however, “there are no proposals for tightening what has been proposed” last month in the security catalogue, which is currently in a review phase. He suggested instead that Merkels comments about a significant tightening were referring to the new security catalogue from last month, and explicitly rejected a Bloomberg report from late Wednesday that Merkel was planning further restrictions.
Röttgen said that, according to the current plans, Huawei would be able to equip two-thirds of the German 5G network.
The German chancellery said Thursday there had been no change to its approach on security restrictions for the 5G network.
Mark Hauptmann, another CDU lawmaker critical of Merkels policy on Huawei, also said he “could not see any tightening of criteria” for access to the German 5G market.
Röttgen linked Merkels reluctance to propose stricter security requirements for the 5G network to German economic interests in China, which is a lucrative export market for products such as cars and machinery.
“I find we simply cannot afford to surrender our digital security and say goodbye to our technological know-how for fear of economic retaliation,” he said. “This would reaRead More – Source
