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 https://www.ft.com/content/35197477-acef-4429-a1d8-71743ee8d8e3 6park.com
 Germany crackdown set to exclude Huawei from 5G rollout 6park.com
IT security bill would provide insurmountable barriers to Chinese telecoms group 6park.com
Germany has been one of Huawei’s key markets for expansion outside mainland China © Michele Tantussi/Reuters
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Guy Chazan in Berlin and Nic Fildes in London SEPTEMBER 30 2020
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Germany is to impose tough new restrictions on telecoms equipment providers which will effectively exclude Huawei from the buildout of the country’s 5G phone networks. 6park.com
An IT security bill that Angela Merkel’s cabinet is planning to pass in the coming weeks would stop short of an outright ban on Huawei but creates bureaucratic obstacles that could prove insurmountable for the Chinese company, according to MPs with knowledge of the draft legislation. 6park.com
A move by the German government to phase out Huawei as a supplier of 5G telecoms equipment would be a huge blow to the Chinese company’s international ambitions. Germany, like the UK, has been one of Huawei’s key markets for expansion outside mainland China and its deals with companies such as Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom have helped turn it into the world’s largest supplier of telecoms equipment. 6park.com
MPs who have seen the new bill say it will introduce a two-stage approval process for telecoms equipment, involving a technical check of individual components combined with a political assessment of the manufacturer’s “trustworthiness”. 6park.com
“The German parliament requires the legal means to be able to exclude untrustworthy suppliers like Huawei from the 5G buildout, and this new law appears to do just that,” said Nils Schmid, foreign policy spokesman for the Social Democrats, a junior partner in Ms Merkel’s coalition government who has called for a tougher approach to Huawei. 6park.com
The bill is not yet finalised and may still undergo technical changes. But it is already clear that it will make it almost impossible for Huawei to participate in Germany’s 5G programme. 6park.com
“How can Huawei, a company with suspected links to the Chinese state, pass a political trustworthiness test?” said one MP involved in the discussions on the new law. “It’s impossible.” 6park.com
Angela Merkel in the Bundestag on Wednesday. The German chancellor faced a rebellion from her own party to take a hard line on Huawei © Michael Kappeler/dpa
The bill also envisages a key role for Germany’s intelligence services, which have long been sceptical about Huawei. “In its current form [the bill] envisages that when doubts arise as to a company’s trustworthiness then the government can investigate it, using information provided by the intelligence services,” said Thorsten Frei, an MP with Angela Merkel’s CDU/CSU