German Chancellor Angela Merkel has asked the CDU/CSU alliance to postpone their decision on whether to include Huawei on the list of 5G Internet providers until an EU summit in March, Reuters quoted sources involved in the talks as saying.
The sources, however, revealed that the Chancellor failed to find common ground with the ruling bloc on the Huawei issue.
Germany's Interior Minister Horst Seehofer previously warned that 5G infrastructure in the country is impossible without Huawei. In an interview to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, he said that the country's 5G rollout project could be stalled for up to ten years without the Chinese tech.
Germany's lack of a definitive decision on Huawei comes amid internal discord in the nation's government on the issue of a 5G rollout. The SPD party, which is a junior member of the coalition, is opposed to Huawei's presence in Germany, while the majority CDU/CSU alliance is undecided on the matter.
US pressure on Germany and its other allies to reject Huawei as a 5G provider has additionally ignited discord over the matter. Washington claims that the company could use the technology to spy on countries that implement it on behalf of the Chinese government. Both the corporation and Beijing vehemently deny this allegation.