Politicians are now asking the Deutsche Bahn board of directors to take on the Huawei issue.
(Photo: AP)
Berlin Politicians in the traffic light coalition are demanding that Deutsche Bahn refrain from using Huawei components in its digital infrastructure. It was a “serious mistake” to install components from the Chinese network supplier. “I have the feeling that the railways have not yet arrived in the new global world,” SPD politician Metin Hakverdi told the Handelsblatt. “We will have to undo all this, it will be unavoidable.” Hakverdi is the rapporteur for the railways responsible for the SPD parliamentary group in the budget committee of the Bundestag.
The FDP digital politician Maximilian Funke-Kaiser advocates allowing Huawei to be excluded with a legal change “immediately”. “The integration of the Huawei group with the Chinese state represents a significant security risk, after all we are in a competition between the systems and have to protect the critical infrastructure of the Federal Republic from being influenced,” he told the Handelsblatt.
As part of an EU-wide tendering process, Deutsche Bahn awarded an order to Deutsche Telekom Business Solutions GmbH last December to set up an in-house IT network that also uses technology from the Chinese group.
According to the Reuters news agency, a railway spokesman pointed out that there was no obligation to report the network infrastructure because the DB Netz radio network was not public. The Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) emphasized that the IT systems of the railways have not yet been classified as critical.
Hakverdi said: “The railways probably trusted Telekom’s assurances when awarding the contract that Huawei components were completely unproblematic.” In view of the many Huawei debates in recent years, this is incomprehensible.
Habeck on Huawei and ZTE in the 5G network: “We should do without it in the future”
The SPD politician also pointed out that the German economy should “never again” become unilaterally dependent on one state after the Ukraine war. This applies in particular to the digital infrastructure and thus also to the digitization of the railways. “It’s a national security issue.”
>> Read also: Germany’s top cyber security authority uses Huawei technology
Huawei is blacklisted in some countries because of its proximity to the Chinese government. Security authorities fear that information about components from the network supplier could flow to China or that sabotage could be perpetrated. So far there is no publicly available evidence of this. Huawei and the government in Beijing have always denied the allegations.
Nevertheless, the federal government is currently examining which components from the Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE may still be used in the German 5G mobile network. “For the future we should do without it,” said Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) of the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”.
But he immediately added that it will not be easy to remove all the already integrated components without jeopardizing the stability of the mobile network. There is a similar discussion about the use of Huawei in the Deutsche Bahn radio network.
Hakverdi called on the Deutsche Bahn board to take on this issue now. The supervisory board is also required. Otherwise, politics will have to intervene. “We will not stand idly by when our sensitive infrastructure is exposed to untrustworthy manufacturers like Huawei.”
Hakverdi warned that it was not possible for the Deutsche Bahn management to leave this issue to the technical department and for geopolitical issues to play no role. “You can’t just ignore the geopolitical dimension,” he said. “The supervisory board should have the management board present a risk assessment.”
Union considers the exclusion of Chinese components to be strategically and security-politically necessary
The exclusion of Huawei from the digitization of the railways is also advocated in the Union. The CDU politician Roderich Kiesewetter calls for further steps. “Overall, Huawei should be excluded from all critical infrastructure, not just from the railways,” said the vice-chairman of the Bundestag’s secret service control committee to the Handelsblatt.
Especially in the area of telecommunications and digitization, especially in the 5G network, the exclusion of Chinese components is strategically and security-politically necessary. “We are massively vulnerable to these components from Huawei, ZTE and others in the digital infrastructure,” warned the CDU politician.
Kiesewetter reminded that the threat situation against Western countries had changed. “Cyber attacks and hybrid approaches pose a threat and weaken our position in the system conflict,” he said. “A rethinking must therefore take place here so that Germany’s critical infrastructure becomes more resilient and our society less vulnerable.”
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