The decision that excludes suppliers such as Huawei from 5G networks in Portugal "appears to be more restrictive than the measures taken by any other European country", said Colm Murphy, senior cybersecurity advisor at Huawei.

The head of the Chinese company was speaking at a presentation to Portuguese journalists in Brussels (Belgium), during a visit to the Huawei Cybersecurity Transparency Center. It is a center focused on promoting the company's cybersecurity practices and in which Huawei allows partners to test the source code of its software in a controlled environment.

The statement about the scope of the decision by the Superior Council for Cyberspace Security was made a few weeks after the Portuguese decision to exclude providers considered to be “high risk” from 5G networks became known. This determination applies to Huawei because it excludes, among others, companies based in countries outside the European Union, OECD or NATO, as is the case of China.

Asked whether the Portuguese decision could lead to the departure of Huawei from Portugal, a country where it employs around 130 people, Colm Murphy did not directly comment on this hypothesis but acknowledged that there is “great uncertainty” at this time around the impacts of the measure. In any case, Huawei has “legal and contractual obligations” in Portugal and “will never let customers down”, he assured.

Jeremy Thompson, Europe cybersecurity and privacy officer at Huawei commented that, in his interpretation, the Portuguese deliberation does not apply only to 5G network equipment, but also to 4G. And he aligned with the opinion that Portugal chose to go further than the other Member States that are already taking steps to implement the European recommendation on fifth-generation mobile security.