Huawei's paradox in Spain: No to 5G, yes to wiretaps

Euronews

18 hours ago

The Spanish Interior Ministry contracts worth €12.3 million to Chinese tech firm Huawei for the management of the storage of judicial wiretaps.
The decision is part of the centralised tenders agreement between 2021 and 2025 and includes the digital custody of interceptions ordered by judges and prosecutors, such as, for example, the Villarejo audios or those provided by the Central Operational Unit (UCO) in the Koldo corruption case.
The system used, according to Spanish media outlet 'The Objective', is the Huawei OceanStor 6800 V5, a line of high-performance storage servers that serves as a support to preserve and classify communications legally intercepted by state security forces.
The award was processed following the established public procedures and complies with the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) security guidelines of the National Cryptologic Centre (CCN-STIC).
This is not the first time that Huawei has participated in sensitive Spanish systems. The Asian company has already provided technological support within the legal interception systems (SITEL), which has generated growing unease in sectors of the National Police and the Civil Guard.
Internal sources inboth bodies express their concern at what they consider to be a "strategic incongruity" in security matters: while extreme caution is being exercised with foreign programmes, critical data is being entrusted to a company linked to the Chinese Communist Party.
The OceanStor model acquired by Spain is a high-end enterprise storage system, designed to manage large volumes of data with high availability. Its main competitive advantage is that it is cheaper than its Western competitors such as Dell EMC, IBM and Hitachi, which has favoured its expansion in several countries.
European veto and international pressures
The Spanish position contrasts sharply with the European and Western trend. The European Union has intensified pressure on Spain to tighten its regulations against Chinese suppliers following the pact reached by Germany to progressively dismantle Huawei and ZTE's infrastructures.
Germany reached an agreement with its main operators (Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica and Vodafone) to phase out these high-risk components. The German regulation sets a replacement schedule that calls for a review of "critical software components" by the end of 2026 and a replacement of "critical functions" by the end of 2029.
This German strategy follows that adopted by Portugal, which in June placed bans on all non-EU, NATO and OECD suppliers. Portugal did not block specific companies, but entire nationalities in order to safeguard its networks against security risks.
In the EU as a whole, ten countries have already imposed restrictions. The UK and Sweden directly banned Chinese suppliers from their core 5G networks, while France, without making a public list, has excluded all Chinese suppliers from its local companies' networks.
Washington and Brussels have been blunt in their stance. Since the Trump era, the US administration has maintained a total veto on Huawei's participation in telecommunications networks. In 2020, the European Commission recommended that its member states exclude "high-risk" providers from 5G deployments.
The current state of play in Spain: de facto veto without explicit prohibition
Despite the Spanish government's official reluctance to specifically target companies such as Huawei or countries such as China, the reality of the Spanish market has changed dramatically. Telefónica has awarded Nokia the last part of its 5G core, completing the removal of Huawei from critical Spanish networks.
This move culminates the unofficial banishment of the Chinese giant from critical telecoms infrastructure in Spain, without the need for an explicit government veto. In 2019, Telefónica had chosen Huawei for its 5G core, but international pressures forced an immediate change of course.
The current situation for Spain's big three operators is clear: all have ousted Huawei from their network cores. Telefónica split it between Nokia and Ericsson, Orange awarded it to Ericsson, and Vodafone chose Nokia. Huawei's presence in the 5G cores of the big three Spanish operators has been reduced to 0%.
Huawei's exit from the Spanish market has been accelerated not only by corporate decisions but also by public policy. Although it maintains a significant presence in the radio networks of some operators (such as 70% in Vodafone), its exclusion from public support for rural 5G through an indirect veto has been decisive.
This government strategy, which requires avoiding "high-risk suppliers" in order to access public funds, led Huawei to file a lawsuit before the Audiencia Nacional. The replacement process requires caution and precision, following a meticulous schedule by phases and regions to avoid service interruptions.
A paradox reflecting geopolitical tensions
The Spanish case with Huawei has become an example of how geopolitics changes the technological map of a country without the need for outright bans. While the 5G network core, the brain that manages all user connections and data, is considered critical infrastructure for national security, paradoxically, trust in the Chinese company to manage judicial wiretapping is maintained.
The Minister of Digital Transformation, José Luis Escrivá, said in a statement to 'The Objective' that Spain has no plans to draw up a list of high-risk suppliers, a prerogative included in the 5G cybersecurity law that two years later has not been developed. This position has a twofold objective: not to single out Chinese suppliers and to maintain a "silver bullet" to act if the geopolitical situation worsens.
Diplomatic rapprochement has also been visible. Spain and China have redoubled their cooperation following the landing of electric car manufacturer Chery in Barcelona and with MG sounding out Galicia to set up in Europe. The Spanish government does not want to undermine these investments by targeting Beijing's main technology companies.
Pedro Sánchez has been, within the EU, one of the most favourable leaders to Huawei's presence, publicly defending that the company should not be excluded because of its country of origin. This position contrasts with the pressure that Brussels has been exerting on Spain over the last two years, without any visible effect.