The CDU party congress in Leipzig voted on Saturday by a large majority for an application with which the controversial Chinese group Huawei is not generally excluded from the expansion of the new mobile network 5G. However, it must be guaranteed that no "foreign country" - whether democratic or undemocratic - could endanger the security of the future mobile network. Huawei is not mentioned.
The application requires "a clearly defined security catalog". Only those network suppliers could be trustworthy who could verifiably guarantee that "an influence by a foreign state on our 5G infrastructure is excluded". In addition, the Bundestag would have to be involved in such a decision, which is anyway because of the upcoming deliberations on an amendment to the Telecommunications Act.
"Maximum loss of control of the state"
Especially in the Union faction, there are great reservations about the Chinese network equipment supplier. Huawei is in the field of world market leader and according to the federal government to 70 percent in the existing mobile network in Germany involved. According to Chinese law, however, large Chinese companies are obliged to serve the interests of the communist state and to cooperate with the Chinese secret service, said CDU foreign policy official Norbert Röttgen on Saturday.
"Therefore it must be clear: We can not entrust the German government, the communist leadership, with the German 5G network." Whoever asked Germany to expand its central "digital nervous system" was a question of "national security and European ambitions," said Röttgen. He warned in this context against a "maximum loss of control of the state".
Röttgen was the initiator of an application that specifically excluded Huawei from the 5G expansion. Only after CDU General Secretary Paul Zimiak had intervened, the original application was defused on Thursday immediately before the start of the congress, and thus brought largely on government line.
Chancellor Angela Merkel had already made it clear before the delegates' meeting that she would not stick to a possible decision against Huawei. No specific state or business can be left out, argued the Chancellor.
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No backdoor Agreement
Huawei had recently tried to dispel German security concerns by bringing such contracts into play. Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei wants to contractually guarantee that his company's technology does not contain any entry points for espionage. "We offer Germany to sign a no-backdoor agreement," the contractor said in early November.
The Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) does not explicitly exclude any providers in its requirements for network expansion. The situation is different in the USA. The US government has banned Huawei from its market and demands the same from its allies.
Other applications, which will be put to the vote for the approximately one thousand CDU delegates on Saturday, also deal with digitization. Among other things, the lead motion for a Digital Charter aims to ease strict data protection in some places - for example, where small businesses are "exaggeratedly" burdened by the General Data Protection Regulation.
