In a letter to the country’s parliament seen by Reuters on Monday, Dutch Justice Minister Ferd Grapperhaus urged telecom companies to meticulously select their equipment suppliers, but stopped short of banning Huawei or any other supplier over spying concerns.
He said that the government had previously endorsed the creation of a task force to conduct a risk assessment with respect to the three major Dutch telecom providers: KPN, T-Mobile and VodafoneZiggo.
Grapperhaus added that the task force recently concluded that there was a “sufficient answer to the threat” of state-backed spying in 5G networks.
Earlier, the task group pointed to the push in Britain and Germany to not exclude Huawei from participating in 5G network projects in these two countries, urging the Netherlands to follow suit.
The move follows Washington’s partial about-face on Huawei last week, when President Donald Trump said on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan that the government will allow US companies to sell equipment to Huawei if it does not pose a risk to national security.
White House economic aide Larry Kudlow, however, said in turn that “Huawei will remain on the so-called Entity’s List, where there are serious export controls and in any national security instances or suggestions there won’t be any licenses.”
In May, following an executive order signed by Trump, Huawei and its 70 affiliates were added by the US Department of Commerce to a blacklist that prevents American companies from selling components to Huawei without a government license.
Washington accuses the Shenzhen-based firm of spying on behalf of the Chinese government and stealing commercial information; it also suspects that the company is funded by China's military. The telecom gear manufacturer insists that it is independent from Beijing.
Last year, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the United States banned the company from participating in government contracts due to security concerns.
