(Bloomberg) -- Germany Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said she won’t be deterred by the high cost of removing Chinese components from the country’s 5G telecommunications network if it’s in the best interests of national security.

Speaking to the Handelsblatt newspaper, Faeser said if there is a high risk of having components from Chinese providers Huawei Technologies Co. and ZTE Corp. in the German network, that the argument that it will be expensive to replace the parts isn’t an excuse not to do so. “We will prohibit components if they pose a serious security risk,” Faeser said. “The network operators will have to act and dismantle the components.” 

Unlike many EU countries, Germany originally avoided an outright ban of Huawei 5G technology amid US pressure to cut Chinese infrastructure providers. Instead, the government decided all components that were deemed “critical IT infrastructure” needed to be certified by the authorities.

The Interior Ministry is carrying out an audit of the nation’s 5G network to assess how much of it is made up of components from Huawei and ZTE. Faeser said that, while the audit isn’t yet complete, the risks of having Chinese components in the network have been “known for a long time.” 

“Our security services have repeatedly warned against one-sided dependencies,” Faeser said. “I think the network providers have had enough time to adjust to this.

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