According to a source, Merkel said: "I have not heard about any pressure from Chinese state authorities," Merkel told German lawmakers when she was asked if Beijing was pressing Berlin to ignore calls to ban Huawei from a role in developing its 5G mobile networks.
Merkel's comment comes in response to a statement by China's envoy to Germany Ken Wu who said Beijing could take measures that could affect the German car industry if Huawei is barred from Germany's 5G rollout.
Following the statement, Merkel's government agreed to delay a decision on security rules for Germany's 5G network until next year in a bid to ramp up scrutiny of telecoms equipment suppliers.
The chancellor herself previously stated that she opposes excluding any company from contributing to the rollout of Germany's 5G network, but priorities security in this matter as well.
Germany's decision on the provider for its 5G network comes amid pressure by the United States who is calling on Berlin as well as other European powers to bar Huawei from developing its national 5G infrastructure, citing security concerns.
United States has been accusing Huawei of espionage and illegal surveillance practices - charges that the company repeatedly denied.
According to Financial Times' reports, Merkel could face a damaging setback in the German parliament after lawmakers from the country’s two governing parties agreed a bill that would in effect exclude Huawei from the build-out of the country’s 5G mobile network.
The draft bill states that suppliers where there is a “risk of state influence without constitutional control, manipulation or espionage” should be designated as “untrustworthy” and “excluded from both the core and peripheral networks”.
The German Chancellor has faced intense pressure from the US and from senior figures from Germany’s intelligence agencies to take a tougher line on Huawei, which many believe could be used by Beijing to conduct espionage or cyber sabotage. Huawei has repeatedly denied that it is a tool of the Chinese government. She has so far resisted the pressure, however, fearing that a ban could prompt the Chinese authorities to retaliate against German companies operating in a market that is critical to Germany’s export-driven economy.
Instead of excluding Huawei she has backed a new set of toughened-up security criteria which potential suppliers in the 5G rollout would have to adhere to. Companies would be obliged to divulge their source codes, have their hardware and software technically certified and give network operators assurances of their trustworthiness.
But Norbert Röttgen, an MP from Ms Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and head of the Bundestag’s influential foreign affairs committee, said that was not enough.
“You don’t just need technical certainty — you need the suppliers to be politically trustworthy too,” said Mr Röttgen, who is one of the initiators of the joint bill, drawn up by both the CDU and its junior partner in government, the Social Democrats. “And companies that are at the mercy of state influence just aren’t trustworthy.”
The bill says that the security criteria should also take into consideration the “political and legal conditions that any given vendor is exposed to in its country of origin”, in a clear reference to China.
It also says that the government should be guided by the need to “preserve Europe’s digital sovereignty” and “secure Europe’s status as a centre of technology”.
The bill notes that there are already European equipment suppliers — a clear reference to Nokia and Ericsson — that “should not be squeezed out of their domestic market by international manufacturers that are in part state-subsidised”.
By banning Huawei from both the core and peripheral networks, the bill could create problems for Germany’s telecom companies, which have warned that excluding the Chinese supplier would dramatically slow down the country’s 5G build-out and make it more expensive.
Telefónica Deutschland, Germany’s second-largest mobile phone company said this week that Huawei would help build its 5G network, while Deutsche Telekom, which is partly owned by the government, said last week that it would freeze spending on new 5G equipment because of the political uncertainty surrounding Huawei.
Nils Schmid, an SPD MP who is one of the initiators of the joint bill on Huawei, said the CDU was still discussing it and was coming under intense pressure from the chancellor’s office and the CDU-controlled economy ministry to drop it.
But he said the pressure to move against the Chinese supplier was becoming irresistible. “The discussion about Huawei is becoming much more critical now in Germany,” he said. “It is part of the broader debate about China as a system in competition with Europe, with a completely different governance model.”
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