Despite Donald Trump's calls to this effect, the European Commission will not propose to ban the global equipment manufacturer Huawei from operating on its territory. Instead, the recommendation it will present on Tuesday 26 March should ask Member States to work better together to address their weaknesses, according to the Reuters news agency.
This recommendation is a response in particular to a request made by the Member States at the informal Telecommunications Council (see EUROPE 12205/4) and the Spring European Council (see EUROPE 12220/1). It was announced in the Roadmap on EU-China relations (see EUROPE 12212/14) in response to the international controversy that emerged last autumn, when the United States called on its partners to stop using Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd on the grounds that they contained backdoors for Beijing to spy on Member States' communications.
According to Reuters, the Commission document will recommend that Member States use the tools defined in the NIS Network Security Directive (Directive 2016/1148) and the Cyber Security Act. For example, they should exchange information and coordinate on security risk studies and on the certification of Internet-connected devices and 5G equipment. However, the Commission will not argue for a European ban on Huawei, leaving this option to Member States on national security grounds.
The institution's guidelines mark a tougher stance towards Chinese investments after years of European openness to China, which controls 70% of the world's supply of critical raw materials needed to manufacture high-tech products.
At the European summit on 21 March, the Belgian Prime Minister, Charles Michel, said, “The deployment of 5G is an important issue to stimulate the digital economy and we must be able to stimulate this digital economy while also protecting our interests in the medium and long term.”
The recommendation comes as French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in Paris. It will certainly feed into discussions during the EU-China Summit on 9 April. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)