EU tells its members to ban Huawei and ZTE over ‘materially higher risks’ than other 5G suppliers

Decision to publicly go after blue-chip 5G providers reflects Brussels’ frustration with the bloc’s slow pace of change in ensuring network security

‘We cannot afford to maintain critical dependencies that could become a weapon against our interests,’ says EU’s internal-market commissioner

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Thierry Breton, the EU’s internal-market commissioner, speaks at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, on Tuesday. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 2:05am, 16 Jun 2023Updated: 4:30pm, 16 Jun 2023

The EU has told its members to ban Chinese telecoms giants Huawei Technologies and ZTE from their 5G networks “ASAP”, saying they carry “materially higher risks than other suppliers”.

The European Commission, the bloc’s secretariat, would also rip Huawei and ZTE equipment out of their premises across the continent, said Thierry Breton, the EU’s internal-market commissioner, at a press conference in Brussels on Thursday.

“We will ask our connectivity services to tell suppliers to be free from Huawei and ZTE, and this applies of course for new and existing contracts,” Breton said, adding that the commission would recommend that the European Parliament and Council follow suit.

In 2020, Brussels recommended that its 27 members strip “high-risk” suppliers out of their networks, but the public communications were country- and platform-neutral.

Berlin stops Chinese companies from investing in German chip makers over security concerns

Three years later and frustrated by the pace of change, the commission has taken the quantum leap of publicly going after China’s two blue-chip 5G providers, which have had market restrictions in 10 out of 27 members so far, with legislation pending in three more.