News

EU Commission Launches Review of Telecoms Rules

06.08.2015

Following the trilogue agreement on roaming and net neutrality the EU Commission is now launching a comprehensive 360° review of the EU telecoms legislation as part of their Digital Single Market strategy according to a blog post by Roberto Viola, Deputy Director General of DG Connect. The review is aimed to assess to what extent the regulatory framework has to be revised to meet technological and market challenges. In this context Commission seeks to evaluate whether current EU telecoms rules have met their objectives, namely enhancing internal market and promoting competition and end-user interests. It has therefore started a Regulatory Fitness and Performance Programme (REFIT) evaluation consulting the Body of the European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) and national telecom regulators.

In a next step the Commission is going to launch a broad public consultation on how to ensure future-proof telecoms rules in the Digital Single Market that will be open for 12 weeks in September. Following the consultation a number of meetings between Ministries, European Parliament committees, regulators, users and industry stakeholders will take place. The topics to be addressed in the review will be substantiated by Commissioner Oettinger in a speech his giving at the IFA 2015 in Berlin, in early September. The Commission however already named a number of main challenges that had to be met by the forthcoming legislation as regards in particular connectivity, fair competition and regulatory consistency across Member States. Thus the Commission seeks to find solutions on how to promote connectivity in (rural) areas and to ensure that access regulation triggers infrastructure investments whilst safeguarding sustainable competition. With regard to the convergence of online applications and traditional services the commission seeks to assess which services should still be subject to sector specific regulation. Moreover the Commission wants to enhance regulatory consistency across Member States to support companies operating across the Digital Single Market and seeks to evaluate whether existing bodies like BEREC and Radio Spectrum Policy Group (RSPG) could work more efficiently in this regard.