Portugal also establishes grounds to ban the use of Huawei 5G equipment

Portugal has established a legal basis to ban the use of Chinese-made 5th generation mobile communication (5G) equipment, including Huawei, according to major foreign media reports on the 26th (local time).

A citizen stands under the Huawei logo at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference held in Shanghai, China, on September 1 last year. / Photo by Yonhap News

According to the reports, the Cybersecurity Committee (CSSC), an advisory body directly under the Portuguese Prime Minister, recently announced a resolution that could prohibit telecommunications companies from using Chinese-made equipment.

In this resolution, the CSSC presented a plan to restrict the use of products from suppliers that could pose high security risks.

Although China was not explicitly mentioned, the warning was based on "suppliers headquartered in countries that control, intervene, or pressure activities in third countries," which is interpreted as targeting Huawei. This is supported by the fact that governments have referred to Huawei as a 'high-risk vendor' when introducing regulations on Huawei equipment.

Foreign media analyzed that Portugal's recent move "has dashed Huawei's efforts to enter and expand its transactions in Portugal's 5G market."

Huawei stated in a press release that it was not aware of Portugal's measures in advance and had never discussed them.

Portugal had been one of the few European countries resisting pressure to join the US sanctions against China, so this move is also interpreted as a sign of changes in bilateral relations.

Major Portuguese telecommunications companies such as Altice, NOS, and Vodafone have already declared that they will not use Huawei equipment in their core 5G networks.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.