Amid international warnings about the security risks posed by Huawei, the Spanish government has decided to continue deepening its relations with the Chinese company, taking a new step in a technology policy that is as reckless as it is opaque. This Christmas Eve, … On one of the most favorable days, without anyone noticing, Adif announced in the Official Journal a call for tenders of up to 484,000 euros for the acquisition of equipment from the Asian giant for the Spanish railway data network. The date chosen for this announcement is not a coincidence: while millions of citizens celebrated the holiday, the Executive promoted a contract that not only reinforces technological dependence, but does so outside of political debate and democratic transparency.
The planned supply responds, according to Adif, to the need for spare parts to maintain equipment previously acquired from Huawei itself. However, this technical argument contains a perverse logic: the more you invest in the technology of a single brand, the more difficult it is to part with it. This “single-vendor trap” places public administrations increasingly reliant on spare parts, updates and technical support from the same manufacturer. The consequence is a progressive loss of technological autonomy in an area as sensitive as transport infrastructure.
The risk is not only economic or logistical. Huawei is subject to the People’s Republic of China’s national security and cybersecurity laws, which require companies to collaborate with the country’s intelligence services. Adif says the routers it will acquire won’t connect to the Internet, but experts’ warnings fuel fears of a backdoor into digital espionage. This is not an unfounded concern. In the past, similar contracts with Huawei have sparked protests in the US Congress, to the point of threatening to limit the flow of intelligence shared with Spain. The European Union, for its part, warned that aid for the deployment of 5G would be conditional on the exclusion of this Chinese company from national technological projects.
It is even more worrying that this new award was disguised as a competitive procedure, when in practice only Huawei can meet the technical requirements required because it is its own equipment.
Added to all this is the elusive attitude of the government which avoids appearing before the Joint Commission on National Security to explain its decisions in the matter. The Executive had the opportunity to provide explanations on the measures adopted to protect strategic information shared with our partners, but it hid behind the alleged “inability to attend” of senior officials, leaving key questions for national security unanswered.
Spain cannot afford to continue a technological drift that compromises its strategic independence and the confidence of its allies. Persisting on this path is not only a mistake, but also recklessness that endangers our digital sovereignty and our collective security. The government must rectify the situation as quickly as possible and present a credible plan to get rid of its technological dependence on Huawei. The opposite is simply unacceptable.
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