Romania’s biggest opposition party, the National Liberal Party (PNL) will initiate a public inquiry into Huawei’s contribution to the country’s critical infrastructure and will seek to bar the Chinese company from getting involved in the development of 5G networks, invoking mounting security concerns, a PNL IT expert told Reuters on March 6.

"We need to protect our strategic interests, and there’s a lot of suspicion lingering around," said Pavel Popescu, PNL representative in the Parliament’s IT committee.

"It’s crucially urgent to block any public deals, contracts, tenders with the Chinese company," he added.

Huawei and company officials have been accused of espionage by authorities in U.S., Australia, and Poland, among others. The group has repeatedly denied spying or intending to spy for the Chinese state. Huawei has been operating in Romania since 2003 and also has a development center in Bucharest.

The PNL MP pointed to a 2013 memorandum of understanding signed by the then-telecom minister with Huawei, offering them an opportunity to participate in the construction of the national information and communications system, traffic monitoring, tracking and e-government projects. His party made an inquiry about the status of this memorandum to which it hasn't received an answer yet.

editor@romania-insider.com

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