‘Providers had enough time’ to reduce reliance on Chinese 5G kit, Interior Minister Faeser says.

By Mathieu Pollet
August 18, 2023 | 12:40 pm CET

The German government is calling time on national telecoms operators' reliance on Chinese 5G equipment.

Germany’s Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told German newspaper Handelsblatt that telecoms providers need to pivot away from using telecoms kit offered by Chinese giant Huawei when it poses security risks, in an interview out Friday.

"The risks have been known for a long time. Our security authorities have repeatedly warned against one-sided dependencies," Faeser said. "I do think that the providers had enough time to adapt to this," she added.

As Europe's largest economy, Germany is still heavily reliant on China for its telecoms networks, recent industry estimates compiled by telecoms consultancy Strand Consult showed late last year. The government's reluctance to impose tough restrictions on Huawei's use has irked Washington and other security officials in past years.

Berlin is putting in place new security checks on Chinese technology in telecoms networks. In March, the German ministry announced it was checking all components with security implications from the Chinese telecoms suppliers, Huawei and ZTE, triggered in part by concerns about a little-known piece of Huawei technology that is supposed to control power consumption, POLITICO revealed.

"We will ban components where there are serious security risks," Faeser said, adding that the government was still assessing the risks.

Any restrictions to the use of Huawei equipment have long faced resistance from major telecoms providers like Deutsche Telekom, which fears cutting out Chinese telecoms vendors will drastically increase the cost of building new networks and keeping existing ones running.

In 2019, despite growing defiance against Huawei, the Chinese company and global telecoms giant Deutsche Telekom struck a deal marking the start of a privileged relationship. Huawei agreed to take measures to avoid supply chain disruption caused by U.S. measures, as well as cover the costs of potential damages and delays.

“A short-term cut would jeopardize mobile coverage and mobile expansion for years to come,” a spokesperson for Deutsche Telekom, Stephan Broszio, told POLITICO, arguing that the company started to remove Huawei from the core network as soon as 2019 and is relying on a multi-vendor strategy in its technology purchases.

"I don't let the cost argument fool me either," Faeser said about those arguments, stressing that if "serious security risks" existed, network operators would have to act.

The German minister's statements come after a statement by the European Commission in June that pressed member countries to step up their game against Chinese 5G vendors arguing their 5G kit poses "materially higher risks" than European competitors' equipment.

So far, most EU countries "have adopted or are preparing legislative measures" to allow security services to block contracts with foreign suppliers but only ten of them "have imposed such restrictions," the Commission said.

"This is too slow and it poses a major security risk and expose[s] the union’s security. We cannot afford to maintain critical dependencies that could become a weapon against our interests," Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton told reporters in Brussels when he presented a report reviewing its 5G Security Toolbox, a 2020 plan endorsed by national governments to decrease the reliance on Chinese telecoms equipment makers.

German minister Faeser also called for more cooperation between cybersecurity watchdogs. "Especially when China is spying on the economy, very close networking between the security authorities is essential," she said.