Cullen International’s update provides an overview of national developments on 5G security in Europe since July 2021.

Key developments include:

• The Italian government submitted to parliament in September 2021 a report on how it had exercised its veto powers (up until June 2021) to impose conditions on the use in 5G networks of ICT components supplied by vendors established outside Europe.
• In Lithuania, draft amendments to the electronic communications law would require telecoms operators to provide the national telecoms regulator (RRT) with information on the vendors of network equipment and components before entering a spectrum award procedure.
• The Norwegian government is considering empowering the ministry of local government and modernisation and the telecoms regulator to refuse, withdraw or amend spectrum licences based on national security concerns.
• The oversight board of the UK’s Huawei Cybersecurity Evaluation Centre (HCSEC) published its annual report, concluding that in 2020 Huawei made no overall improvement to meet the product software engineering and cybersecurity quality expected by the UK National Cybersecurity Centre (NCSC).

An overview of the 5G security measures in the 27 EU member states, Norway, Switzerland and the UK can be found in a separate benchmark. This benchmark includes actions taken by these countries to transpose the security measures recommended in the EU 5G security toolbox.

The European Commission published on 29 January 2020 the 5G risk management toolbox, which lists measures to mitigate the security threats associated with 5G networks.

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