In news from Berlin, the German Bundestag passed a stricter 5G security legislation on April 23. This latest development puts an end to doubts over the past two years about whether the largest European market would take a tougher stance against Chinese telecom giant Huawei.
According to political news site Politico, the newly passed “Information Security Act 2.0” (also known as IT Security Act 2.0) will limit the role of “untrustworthy” suppliers of 5G technology and require telecoms operators to notify the German government when signing contracts for key 5G components. In addition, the law gives the government the power to block the signing of contracts. After years of internal debate, the adoption of these rules will bring Berlin closer to Paris, London and other major international capitals in regulating sensitive network technologies.
But even so, the law will require political decisions in its implementation. The so-called “untrustworthy” 5G providers are said to be defined mainly as companies that have been found to have violated their security commitments, so it is an ex post facto exclusion. So how to assess whether they pose a threat to German national security, which includes three criteria: first, whether the supplier is controlled directly or indirectly by a foreign country? Second, has the supplier posed a threat to the national security of Germany, the EU, or NATO in the past? Third, does the use of the component conflict with the security objectives of Germany, the EU or NATO?
Analysts say we will likely have to wait for the next German government to come to power to decide whether Huawei meets these criteria. The German Interior Ministry will have a special decision in this regard. The German Bundestag will hold general elections on Sept. 26 this year. The newspaper quoted current Interior Minister Horst Seehofer as saying in a speech to the German Bundestag on Friday that “if suppliers are not trustworthy, they can refuse to use key components (they provide).”
It is understood that negotiations on Germany’s position on Huawei have largely stalled as German ministries and the ruling coalition failed to make up their minds on the key issue of 5G market access last year. The current coalition of the ruling CDU, CSU and SPD have been repeatedly delayed as they disagree on how to deal with Huawei – the privileged supplier to Germany’s three major 4G infrastructure operators. The final version of the law instead gives Germany’s interior ministry more power to block 5G contracts and less power to interfere with other ministries, such as the economy ministry, which has been more favorable to Huawei in the past.
Under the law, the Interior Ministry will have two to four months to check the deal against national security standards after the German telecom operator notifies the government of its plans to buy new critical 5G components. The lawmakers also added a sentence to the law that the use of new critical 5G components must be consistent with the “security policy objectives” of Germany, the EU and NATO. The latter two have already taken positions cautioning against the use of Chinese components in critical and sensitive parts of 5G networks. In addition, suppliers must provide a security commitment, and the German Bundestag has raised the threshold for suppliers to meet this “trustworthiness” standard.
Recent Comments