BIDDERS for German 5G rollout contracts must guarantee the network will be free of foreign state influence, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats agreed on Saturday, stopping short of singling out China’s Huawei.

After a heated debate, delegates at the Christian Democratic Union’s (CDU) party congress backed a motion stipulating that 5G suppliers must fulfill a “clearly defined security catalog, which includes the exclusion of influence by a foreign state.”

Some CDU lawmakers want China’s Huawei to be excluded from 5G contracts in the country. Merkel wants security standards to be the yardstick, rather than singling out any one company.

The Shenzhen-based company has repeatedly denied the allegations by Washington, which has pressured its allies to shut out Huawei and in May imposed export controls on the company, hobbling its smartphone business and raising questions over whether it can maintain its market lead.

All of the telecom operators in Germany, which has close trading ties with China, are customers of Huawei and have warned that banning the company would add years of delays and billions of dollars in costs to the launch of 5G networks.

As the senior party in Merkel’s ruling coalition, the CDU motion carries weight and will likely make its way into government policy. The approved proposal also called for parliament to be included in decision making on the 5G rollout.

Merkel told the CDU’s executive committee Thursday that Huawei components accounted for about 70 percent of Germany’s existing mobile network and that Ericsson’s and Nokia’s share would rise in future, top party officials said.(SD-Agencies)