State Parliament Member Ansgar Meyer (CDU): From 2026: The federal government will refrain from using 5G technology from Chinese providers

Ansgar Mayr MdL welcomes the decision, but calls for an early end to cooperation with Chinese companies and stresses the need for better protection of other critical infrastructure.

After long disagreements, the federal government and German mobile network operators have agreed on a comprehensive ban on Chinese 5G technology. In order to avoid claims for damages, a settlement has been concluded as a public law contract, as announced by Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser. The contract stipulates that service providers have more time to switch and that simple components from Huawei or ZTE will continue to be used.

The digital representative of the CDU parliamentary group in the state, Ansgar Meyer, welcomed the decision of the traffic light coalition. However, in order to overcome the growing challenge of cybersecurity, action must be taken more quickly:

“In view of the increasing number of hacker attacks in recent years, the compromise negotiated by the federal government with the network operators is not sufficient. We cannot wait until 2026 before vital components from China are removed from the core networks. The security of communications in Germany, both private and professional, must be a top priority,” explains Ansgar Meyer.

In the past, the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) has repeatedly pointed to the increasing number of hacker attacks and called for greater priority to be given to the issue of cybersecurity.

Ansgar Mayr MdL also calls for the protection of other essential infrastructure.

“Banning Chinese components in mobile networks is not enough. We must also protect other critical infrastructure from foreign access. These include, among others, the energy, financial, healthcare, and critical fiber-optic networks industries.

Concerns about network security are based on the legal obligation of Chinese companies to cooperate closely with the Chinese state. There are therefore concerns that Chinese IT companies, under the direction of the Chinese government, could install backdoors in their systems in order to sabotage IT and telephone networks, for example, in the event of a crisis.