Huawei protests EU guideline that aims to phase it out as vendor

HUAWEI Technologies said the European Commission’s call to recommend excluding its advanced wireless equipment in the European Union (EU) market was based on “discriminatory judgments”.

The Shenzhen-based telecom gear maker released a statement after the EU’s executive arm issued a set of guidelines that urged member countries to phase out high-risk vendors including Huawei and ZTE from telecom networks.

“This is clearly not based on a verified, transparent, objective and technical assessment of 5G networks,” Huawei said in the statement released on Saturday (Jun 17). “Restrictions or exclusions based on discriminatory judgments will pose serious economic and social risks.”

The Commission’s decision came after the US prevented Huawei from using a wide spectrum of American technologies from chip manufacturing equipment to smartphone software. 

Washington also has been pressuring the EU to take a tougher stance on Beijing as conflicts over Taiwan and battles for dominance in technologies from artificial intelligence to chips and quantum computing escalate. Kicking Huawei out of EU operations could significantly reduce Chinese influence in the region.

A number of EU member states, including Germany, are still using Huawei products in their networks. BLOOMBERG