Brussels wants to ban contracts like Spain's with Huawei due to security concerns

BrusselsThe European Commission has taken another step forward in its efforts to end contracts with foreign companies that could pose a threat to EU security. Brussels proposed on Tuesday that public administrations stop awarding public contracts like the one in question. Spain awarded Huawei the contract for the SITEL system.which stores court-ordered wiretaps.

The European Commission proposes in the reform of the cybersecurity regulation, which will now become mandatory, that member states have three years to exclude or terminate contracts with companies it considers to present "substantial risks," as it has classified Huawei and ZTE. The Commission estimates that the economic impact of phasing out these high-risk providers will be between 3 and 4 billion euros.

Brussels has not yet released the list of companies to be included on the new list, but Huawei has already been classified as a "substantial risk." EU sources confirm that "the market has not changed" in this regard recently. In fact, the European Commission has already criticized the Spanish government on more than one occasion regarding its contract with Huawei. "It has the potential to create dependence on a high-risk supplier in a critical and sensitive sector, which would increase the risk of foreign interference," warned Henna Virkkunen, Vice-President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Technological Sovereignty, at the end of last year.

Beyond the Spanish government, however, the Generalitat is also going award Huawei a public contract which stirred up controversy and which the regulation now proposed by the European Commission aims to prevent. The Catalan administration awarded Sirt-Connecta, which uses Chinese technology from Huawei, the project to connect all its public services and facilities via fiber optics. The contract, worth 127 million euros, excluded companies such as Telefónica, MasOrange, and Vodafone, and is a strategic project because it involves the connectivity of critical public services such as the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police), the education system, and emergency services. It should be remembered that the European Commission's regulatory proposal is not final and still needs to be negotiated by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union, the body that represents the member states.