EU Parliament adopts rules on net neutrality and roaming charges

On 27th October 2015, after a rather drawn-out process, the EU Parliament adopted the Draft of the European Council for a Regulation “laying down measures concerning open internet access and amending Directive 2002/22/EC on universal service and users’ rights relating to electronic communications networks and services and Regulation (EU) No 531/2012 on roaming on public mobile communications networks within the Union” after a second reading. The rather unwieldy name stands for a compromise of the EU institutions to establish a Union law basis for net neutrality and to abolish roaming charges. This was reached by the EU Commission, the European Parliament and the Council in recent months in arduous trilogue negotiations (see our report on this).

The gradual abolition of roaming charges has been positively received almost across the board. Opinions differ on the other hand with respect to the issue of net neutrality. While Commissioner Oettinger praises the new rules as a “compromise between the interests of business and consumers,” opponents including consumer organisations and politicians of various parties fear, as do the directors of the regional media authorities and the ARD broadcasting companies that the Regulation paves the way for a two-tiered internet. In his legal opinion for the Office of the Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia, Professor Fetzer also criticises that the text of the Regulation is still too vague in many places: “Due to the freedom of interpretation which the draft Regulation allows on central issues, there is a risk that the Regulation will not implement the concepts pursued by the legislator with sufficient clarity.”