Mubasher: German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government excluded a definite ban targeting Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, as Berlin pushes for setting up its fifth-generation (5G) networks, a news report said.

Cabinet members from Chancellor Merkel’s administration had a meeting on Wednesday in Berlin to discuss the prospect of banning Huawei hardware, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing a government official.

The ministers found that excluding Huawei from a list of providers was not legally viable, the official said.

Germany’s Economy Minister Peter Altmaier ruled out that any restrictions tied to the shift to the next-generation technology would target specific suppliers.

Rather, all companies are subject to strict security standards, Altmaier said.

The Interior Ministry would establish a slew of security criteria to determine the level of scrutiny on suppliers, offering then the chance for various ministries to weigh in on them.

The catalogue would be completed in the next couple of weeks, the official told Bloomberg.