Regulators ready to back EU telecoms plans

National authorities are preparing to meet the European commission half way in a bid to improve competition in the telecoms sectors.

According to a report in French business paper Les Echos reports, the national regulators from several key EU member states are finalising plans for a new EU-wide authority that would oversee liberalisation.

Media commissioner Viviane Reding last year warned the national regulators that she was dissatisfied with the pace of liberalisation in many EU telecoms sectors, and suggested the creation of an independent regulator to oversee reforms.

The European regulators group (ERG), which groups together the national telecoms authorities from each member state, warned that such a body would be ill-suited to speed up the pace of the reforms.

Local market problems need local solutions, and these can only be highlighted and resolved by local regulators, the ERG argued.

It suggested, therefore, that the ERG itself be given more powers to oversee regulation across the EU – creating not a centralised regulator but rather a network of independent regulators working together.

In a letter to the ERG last December, Reding agreed to pursue this line of thought, but warned again that she would only accept an ERG “with teeth” as an alternative to a fully independent body.

The paper on Monday claimed that the regulators in several key EU countries – France, the UK, Italy and Spain – had thrown their weight behind plans for the new, beefed up ERG.

The plans are also said to be supported by Germany – a country that has been widely criticised by Reding for failing to open up its telecoms markets.

But Poland and Denmark are among the countries that still have concerns about the plans, this website has learned.

The ERG is due to give an official response to the commission by mid-February, with the commission’s proposals for overhauling the 2002 telecoms rules due in July.

But a spokesman for commissioner Reding stressed that the ERG would have to put forward concrete proposals for change.

“We want a sort of ‘European FCC’ – our version of the US market regulator – that would be able to force national regulators to change market remedies if they were not considered compatible with EU internal market rules.”

“This we believe would lead to faster decisions and faster opening up of markets to competition.”

“But we would not be happy to accept a proposal from the ERG that said simply that national regulators would try their best to work more closely together – that would not be enough.”

Reding is annoyed that different countries have approached the same problems in different ways – some allowing incumbents to benefit from ‘regulatory holidays’ to recoup investment, others obliging monopolies to spin-off various parts of the business.

She wants a more harmonised approach – but regulators argue that harmonisation is not appropriate for every sector.

Cable services, for example, are well-developed in the Benelux countries, but are barely existent in the new EU members, making a one-size-fits-all approach unnecessary.

Regulators were also concerned that the commission wanted to give itself more powers – at present, it can only disagree with national authorities on their assessment of market competition, but has no power to veto or propose its own remedies.

But Reding’s spokesman stressed that this was not the case. “We do not want a super-regulator with powers to veto or propose remedies.”

“In any case, once the markets are liberalised, there will be no more need for a regulator. Market forces will ensure correct competition.”

And he stressed that telecoms companies wanted clarification of who was responsible for overseeing markets.

National regulators frequently ignore suggestions of the commission on opening up markets, often prompting legal action and leaving operators unclear about who is making the rules.

• Previous article
• Next article