Bidders for German 5G rollout contracts must guarantee the network will be free of foreign state influence, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats agreed on Saturday, stopping short of singling out China’s Huawei. After a heated debate, delegates at the Christian Democratic Union’s (CDU) party congress backed a motion stipulating that 5G suppliers must fulfill a “clearly defined security catalog, which includes the exclusion of influence by a foreign state”. Some CDU lawmakers want China’s Huawei, which the United States fears could be used by Beijing for spying, to be excluded from 5G contracts in the country.