Germany wants to dictate EU policy on 5G and China

German Chancellor Merkel has surprised nobody by calling for all member states to do what the EU tells them when it comes to 5G policy.

“One of the biggest dangers… is that individual countries in Europe will have their own policies towards China and then mixed signals will be sent out,” said Merkel in the German parliament, according to a Reuters report. “That would be disastrous not for China but for us in Europe.”

OK Angela, we hear you. It’s not called the European Union for nothing, right? What kind of a union would it be if everyone went around thinking for themselves eh? So the next step should be to get all the member states together to thrash out a common position, perhaps in European parliament, which seems tailor-made for the job.

Sadly not. It looks like Merkel would rather it was left to Germany and France to decide on the policy, which could then be rubber-stamped by the European parliament and become a directive for everyone else. It’s actually quite refreshing to see such an open admission that the EU is essentially a Franco-German project that the other member states should feel grateful to be allowed to participate in.

Since Germany and France have already decided not to ban Chinese vendors from their 5G networks, Merkel is essentially saying she doesn’t want any other countries upsetting the Chinese by excluding them. She doesn’t seem to say why it would be disastrous for Europe not to do what Germany tells it, but since that’s implicit in the whole concept of the EU she presumably thought it redundant.