2023-06-15 21:46:09
The European Commission is toughening its stance against Chinese telecom equipment manufacturers Huawei and ZTE. In communication adopted on 15 JuneBruxelles “underlines its serious concerns about the risks that certain suppliers of communication equipment for mobile networks pose to the security of the Union”. She cites the two Chinese groups by name, which she had never done before in her previous decisions on the subject. According to the Commission, Huawei and ZTE “represent materially higher risks than other 5G vendors”.
During a press conference, Thierry Breton, the European commissioner for the internal market, who had sent some signals in recent weeks on the subject, therefore called “all Member States and telecommunications operators to take the necessary measures without further delay” to ban Huawei and ZTE hardware from their networks.
The Commission will apply the measure for itself: it will ask all its telecommunications suppliers to no longer use the equipment of the two Chinese groups, including in all its national representations, which could have a knock-on effect with other institutions, hopes Brussels.
Interceptions for espionage purposes
Why this bloodshed against the two Chinese equipment manufacturers? No particular recent event is at the origin of this decision, it is assured in Brussels, where it is said to have long identified the security risks posed by the presence of foreign equipment in telecoms, in particular in network cores, where the risk of interceptions for espionage purposes is the highest.
In October 2020, the Council of the European Union called on Member States to implement the recommendations set out in the 5G cybersecurity toolbox (EU Toolbox) unveiled in January of the same year by the cooperation group cybersecurity authorities, the Commission and the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (Enisa).
Since then, Brussels has been concerned about the delay in applying this toolbox, hence its insistence. According to a report submitted on June 15, twenty-four member states have adopted or are preparing legislation banning telecom equipment manufacturers from countries deemed to be at risk for security. But only ten of them actually apply restrictive measures.
France is one of them. Huawei and ZTE are not formally banned from France. But since the law of August 2019, known as 5G, “aimed at preserving the interests of the defense and national security of France in the context of the operation of mobile radio networks”, French operators must obtain authorization from the National Information Systems Security Agency (Anssi) in order to be able to install equipment from a non-EU supplier, which in effect amounts to prohibiting Huawei and ZTE equipment in the most sensitive parts of their networks. Portugal is the latest European country to pass an “anti-Huawei” law in May.
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