The European Commission has proposed a mandatory ban on high-risk tech suppliers. Consequently, public administrations in Spain and across Europe now face a strict three-year deadline to terminate contracts with foreign technology providers classified as such. The Commission proposed the measure on Tuesday, explicitly targeting agreements with companies such as Huawei and ZTE due to national security concerns.
This move marks a significant shift from previous non-binding recommendations to mandatory regulation. Under the proposed reform, member states would be legally compelled to exclude these vendors from future tenders and strip out existing equipment within 36 months. Brussels estimates the economic cost of replacing this infrastructure across the bloc will sit between €3 billion and €4 billion.
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Security over savings for high-risk tech suppliers
The Commission’s proposal aims to secure the European Union’s digital supply chain against foreign interference. While a definitive list of banned companies has not yet been published for this specific regulation, officials confirmed that Huawei and ZTE are already classified as presenting “substantial risks”. Sources in Brussels noted that the market conditions regarding these vendors have not changed recently. This top-down regulatory approach differs from other recent calls for EU policy intervention that have emerged from local governments.
Henna Virkkunen, the Commission’s Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, warned late last year that reliance on these providers creates dangerous dependencies. She argued that maintaining contracts in sensitive sectors increases the potential for foreign states to compromise critical networks. The official proposal documents outline the urgent need to standardise these exclusions across all member states.
Spanish and Catalan contracts with high-risk tech suppliers in the crosshairs
The directive places immediate pressure on several major public infrastructure projects in Spain. The Commission has previously criticised the Spanish government for using Huawei technology in the SITEL system, which manages judicial telephone interceptions and stores sensitive data.
Regional governments are also exposed. The Generalitat of Catalonia recently awarded a controversial €127 million contract to Sirt-Connecta, a firm utilising Huawei technology, to manage the fibre optic network for public services. This network connects critical bodies including the Mossos d’Esquadra police force, emergency services, and public schools. The inclusion of the Catalan police is particularly notable, as the force frequently collaborates on international security matters, such as executing a European Arrest Warrant.
That contract, which excluded European competitors such as Telefónica and Vodafone, exemplifies the type of agreement Brussels intends to eliminate. Therefore, if the regulation passes in its current form, the Catalan administration would be forced to terminate or renegotiate the deal to remove the high-risk elements.
The proposal will now move to negotiation between the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union. Meanwhile, member states are expected to debate the timeline and the financial implications of the mandatory replacements before the text becomes law.
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