Government blocks Chinese companies from national 5G networks

Portugal’s Higher Council for Cyberspace Security – a body which is closely tied to the Council of Ministers – has decided this week that companies headquartered outside the EU, US and other OECD countries should be blocked from entering Portuguese 5G networks.

According to Jornal Económico, Ambassador Francisco Seixas da Costa said the decision was directly aimed at Huawei. “This is a concern in Europe that has been around for a long time, a concern shared by the US.
“It certainly has to do with security issues for the EU and NATO and will not have been a decision taken unilaterally”, said the ambassador.
The ruling will now be applied by the Portuguese Communications Authority ANACOM, and must be actioned as soon as possible since the use of such equipment on public networks is considered ‘high risk’ in the security evaluation that had informed the decision taken by the council.
The decision follows the German government’s announcement in March that it was carrying out a review of tech suppliers such as Huawei and ZTE whose equipment is used in Germany’s 5G networks.