According to him, it is more complicated to compile a list of reliable suppliers. However, the focus on identification of unreliable suppliers turns the whole process into target shooting as new unreliable suppliers are emerging on a regular basis.
“I’d like to point out that we would like to shift discourse to reliable manufacturers, from unreliable ones. This means a choice – either we speak about a system based on trust, or a system based on threats,” Abukevicius said during a sitting of the parliamentary Committee on National Security and Defense (CNSD) on Friday.
The committee on Friday discussed ways to avoid dependence on unreliable technology suppliers.
According to the committee’s chair, Laurynas Kasciunas, CNSD plans to “plot out that route navigation – where we will move and how” amid the approaching rollout of 5G in Lithuania.
Abukevicius told the committee that the criteria defining reliable suppliers might be linked to the manufacturers’ registration in NATO, EU, or, for instance, OECD countries.
“If we talk about unreliable suppliers, we would base the system on threats, and if we talk about reliable ones, we would base it on trust, which is more difficult to implement as it takes more efforts to compile a list of reliable manufacturers. However, if we only focus on unreliable manufacturers, we will find ourselves permanently fighting and shooting at a moving target as there will be one [unreliable] manufacturer identified one day, then another one some other day and so on and so forth,” the official said.
The government’s program sets out plans to make sure that state institutions and the sectors important to the national security, including 5G infrastructure, do not use technologies and equipment from unreliable manufacturers.