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EU rejects premise of binary choice on Huawei

Monday, March 2, 2020

Subject

EU policies towards Chinese telecoms firm Huawei.

Significance

The EU and its member states are devising responses to the potential cybersecurity risks posed by the participation of Chinese telecoms equipment maker Huawei in their 5G mobile telecommunications infrastructure. They reject the premise that they face a binary choice between giving Huawei unrestricted access and giving it none at all. Instead, they disaggregate the issue into multiple separate decisions about what functions to allow Huawei equipment to perform and how best to mitigate the potential risks this entails.

Impacts

  • The EU-level framework allows countries to ban Huawei, but none are likely to because it would carry a heavy economic and political price.
  • Multiple 5G equipment providers may be required to share projects due to provider diversification requirements becoming an EU standard.
  • Controversies over Huawei make an EU-level Cybersecurity Certification framework more urgent; this will affect all digital businesses.
  • Concerns around 5G may push the EU Commission to promote policies to ensure local suppliers exist for future critical technologies.
  • The risk of Chinese ‘back doors’ is only one of many security challenges 5G roll-out entails, and not necessarily the most critical.

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