After London, the European Union (EU) in turn opened its door to Chinese Huawei, Wednesday, January 29, to develop 5G.

US pressures allies to exclude Huawei, suspected of spying on behalf of Beijing: Australia and Japan listened, but EU resists, although still under threat of a trade war with Washington.

"We in Europe, we accept everyone but we have rules, these rules are clear, demanding", declared the European Commissioner for Industry, Thierry Breton, during the presentation of a guide of measures to be taken in the EU to ensure the security of 5G networks.

This "toolbox", developed by all EU Member States in collaboration with the European Commission, contains recommendations on what needs to be done to eliminate the specific risks of deploying new technology infrastructure.

These recommendations, which the EU Member States have promised to follow, are not binding.

According to the EU press release, it is recommended to carry out "necessary exclusions (...) for critical and sensitive assets (...) such as network management and orchestration functions".

Each country and each operator is also called upon to "have several sources of suppliers to reduce risks".

Huawei immediately praised the decision and praised the Europeans for their "objective and fact-based" approach.

Difficult to do without Huawei

Number two in the smartphone market, Chinese Huawei has established itself in the development of ultra-fast 5G mobile Internet against its Swedish rivals Ericsson, Finnish Nokia and South Korean Samsung.

It seems difficult for the Union to do without Huawei: industrially, it has a technological advantage over its competitors and it is already present in many countries.

In Germany, operators currently have up to 60% of Huawei equipment in their 3G and 4G networks, from concordant sources. A situation that would make it difficult to switch to 5G without Chinese equipment, involving the reinstallation of new 4G equipment in particular, and therefore a significant additional cost and delay in deployment.

On the French side, if a law provides for strengthening the control of network equipment before installation to guarantee their security, no provision specifically targets the Chinese group.

In Spain, Italy, Poland and Greece in particular, it is already planned that operators will use Huawei in their deployments, alongside Ericsson and Nokia.

With AFP

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