"Anti-Huawei" 5G bill endorsed by expert committees in Romania's Senate

The Senate's legal, economic, defense and communications commissions issued on June 4 a positive opinion, with amendments, to the Government-initiated draft law that sets the procedures and guidelines for licensing providers of hardware and software used by the telecom operators in their 5G networks, Wall-street.ro reported.

The bill is fiercely criticised by Huawei, which expects to be the main target. The senators of all the parties backed the positive opinion, except for those of the USR party, who argued that the bill would trigger infringement procedures since it should have been notified to the European Commission.

The Government, however, decided not to go ahead with notification on the grounds that only the 5G bills including technical guidelines should undergo such procedures.

The chairman of the Senate defense committee, Nicoleta Pauliuc, mentioned that "the project is a solution to the threats and vulnerabilities to national security on the communications side."

"When we talk about security, we are talking about welfare. Today, through this bill, we have laid the foundations of security. Having security, and here we also mean our identity, when we use social networks, it cannot be taken and used for other purposes. Having security, we also have prosperity," added Pauliuc.

Huawei argues for significant amendments to the 5G draft bill that the Romanian Government submitted for endorsement to the Parliament. The Chinese company wants the Parliament's expert committees to officially invite suppliers, telecom operators, and consumer associations to the debates on the bill.

On the one hand, Huawei warns against the negative impact of the 5G bill as it is (EUR 2.56 bln direct losses and EUR 4.67 bln indirect losses) and suggests amendments to the bill. At the same time, it claims that it is not a threat to security but a security supplier through its technologies.

As regards the concrete amendments Huawei proposes, they are two. Firstly, the Chinese company wants the 5G bill to refer to the EU 5G toolkit and the legislative practices of other EU member states (e.g. Germany and Finland) and reduce the scope (of the licensing requirements) to the sensitive area, namely to the 5G core network.

Secondly, Huawei suggests managing the cybersecurity risks by technical means - a procedure that has been fully verified in EU member states. Germany and Finland have introduced technical standards (such as the GSMA NESAS standard) in the relevant legislation of their respective countries, Huawei argues.