Angela Merkel set up a meeting with senior conservative lawmakers for Thursday, with one aim: end an argument inside her own party over whether China’s Huawei should be kept out of Germany’s 5G rollout. Reuters reported the plan on Jan. 15, citing party sources.
Handelsblatt, the business daily, first reported the meeting on Wednesday.
The split runs through her conservatives. Their junior coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SPD), back a proposal that would in effect shut the Chinese vendor out. SPD lawmakers had earlier endorsed an internal plan saying vendors from countries without “constitutional supervision” must be excluded. The SPD says it wants a common position with Merkel’s CDU/CSU group.
The conservatives are not aligned. Hawks who oppose the chancellor’s preferred rules, which leave the door open to Huawei, want to adopt the SPD’s strict standards. Moderates who prefer to avoid a showdown with Merkel proposed applying the tough security criteria to the core network only.
What the government wants
Merkel’s right-left government is under pressure from the United States to bar Huawei. Its own plan is narrower. It wants tougher technical certification and closer scrutiny of telecoms equipment suppliers, without excluding any specific country or vendor.
The cost argument
German operators are all Huawei customers. They have warned that a ban would add years of delay and billions of dollars in costs to launching 5G networks.
Washington’s case is about security. The United States says Huawei equipment contains “back doors” that would let China spy on other countries. Huawei, based in Shenzhen and the leading telecoms equipment vendor with a global market share of 28%, has denied the allegations from the Trump administration. That administration imposed export controls on the company in May, a move that hurt its smartphone business and raised doubts about whether it can keep its lead.
On Wednesday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Huawei issues were not part of the economic dialogue with China and would be negotiated separately.
