Huawei Spain has filed a contentious administrative appeal before the National Court against a basic order from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation for the granting of 500 million euros of aid for the development of 5G networks in rural areas, considering it contrary to law and disproportionate.
Vodafone has also resorted to these aid bases, as telecom sources have confirmed to EFE.
Specifically, Huawei has filed an appeal against Ministerial Order ETD 685/2023, which establishes the bases for the granting of these more than 500 million euros, charged to funds from the EU Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, considering that it contains a “provision contrary to law and disproportionate”, according to Huawei sources.
The contested clause is article 10.9 of the contest rules, published in the Official State Gazette (BOE) on June 26, which specifies that “the equipment, components, system integrations and associated software in the elements critical components of 5G networks will not be acquired from suppliers that have been designated as high risk by Spain,” according to El País.
At the moment in Spain, the list of high-risk suppliers has not been published.
The article adds a “special condition” by which “if once the project has been executed, the 5G supplier selected by the beneficiary is declared high risk, the beneficiary must proceed to replace the equipment of said supplier with that of another that is not finds itself in said situation, carrying out at its own cost the change of the equipment that could be already installed”.
Furthermore, it requires that this replacement be carried out within a maximum period of two years.
Huawei considers that these bases interfere with the freedom of operators to choose the best supplier with objective criteria – commercial, technical and security – and that “they seek to exclude certain suppliers based on arbitrary political criteria.”
According to the Chinese technology company, this approach will reduce competition, cause a distortion of the telecommunications sector in Spain, hinder innovation and pose great economic and social risks.
Huawei Spain trusts that the court will address the various violations of the law and restore the legitimate rights and interests of the company in order to maintain competition for the benefit of consumers and users, as well as companies in rural Spanish areas.
The technology company assures that it has been an important collaborator in Spain for more than 20 years and will continue working with its partners, for the benefit of digitalization and the Spanish ICT ecosystem.
If Huawei were included in the list of high-risk suppliers in Spain, these bases would affect Orange and Vodafone since they would have to change the Chinese technology company’s equipment if they received aid, according to sources in the sector.
Orange, for its part, has declined to make statements to EFE in this regard, while Telefónica has not given its position for the moment.