BERLIN, 16 Jan. - (ANA) - Chancellor Angela Merkel will meet senior conservative lawmakers on Thursday to resolve a dispute in her own party over whether to bar China’s Huawei from the country’s 5G network rollout, party sources said.

 

Merkel’s conservatives are divided on whether to support a proposal by their Social Democrat junior coalition partners that, if approved, would effectively shut out the Chinese technology giant from the network.

 

Handelsblatt business daily was first to report on Wednesday the planned meeting between Merkel and senior conservative lawmakers.

 

Merkel’s right-left government, under pressure from the United States to bar Huawei, wants to toughen up technical certification and scrutiny of telecoms equipment suppliers, without excluding any specific country or vendor.

 

Social Democrat (SPD) lawmakers last year backed an internal proposal that stipulates that vendors from countries without “constitutional supervision” must be excluded.

 

The SPD maintains it wants to reach a common position with Merkel’s CDU/CSU conservative group, which is divided on the issue.

 

Conservative hawks opposed to rules favored by the chancellor that would keep the door open to Huawei are eager to go ahead with the SPD’s strict standards.

 

Moderates eager to avoid a showdown with Merkel suggested that the stringent security criteria should apply to the core network only.  - (ANA) -

 

AB/ANA/16 January 2020 - - -