Press release-European tech industry urges co-legislators to stay focused on delivering on the Electronic Communications Code

“Europe simply cannot afford to deliver half-baked solutions with the ongoing talks over telecoms reform,” said Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl, Director General of DIGITALEUROPE, ahead of the Electronic Communications Code trialogue meeting of 20 March.

“The compromises reached so far on spectrum have done a few very good things, notably on small cells, but also frustrated bigger ambitions for harmonisation and global leadership. In the rest of the negotiations, we want to see a clear focus and results that protect scale, investment and innovation across Europe,” she continued.

“If the co-legislators can’t keep their eyes on more investment and more single market, in the very near future it’s European consumers and European businesses big and small that will suffer the consequences. The EU institutions need to keep their promises on the big objectives,” Bonefeld-Dahl concluded.

As attention now shifts to the access and services provisions, DIGITALEUROPE calls on the EU Member States and the European Parliament to aim for a Code that delivers a fully harmonised single market approach for services, including general authorisation and a one-stop-shop mechanism, as well as definitions, requirements for emergency services and interoperability provisions that are more targeted to truly equivalent services. When it comes to security, the Code needs to avoid fragmented approaches in the Member States and align with the NIS Directive.

On access, the Code must include unequivocal pro-investment tools for the deployment of Very High Capacity Networks, including through co-investment, giving investors the necessary legal certainty so long as the co-investors comply with the conditions set in advance. More broadly, investment in next-generation networks in Europe would be severely impacted if the Commission’s original text were weakened in a way that fundamentally makes the entire framework less proportionate and targeted.