Argyris, Nicholas John, (born 22 March 1943), Director, Communications Services: policy and regulatory framework (formerly Telecommunications Trans European Networks and Services and Postal Services), European Commission, 1993–2001

2011 ◽  
pp. 383-410
Author(s):  
Severine Dusollier ◽  
Laetitia Rolin Jacquemyns

In the Communication on Electronic Commerce of 19971 , the European Commission stressed that “in order to allow electronic commerce operators to reap the full benefits of the Single Market, it is essential to avoid regulatory inconsistencies and to ensure a coherent legal and regulatory framework for electronic commerce.” The electronic marketplace has a crucial need to know “the rules of the game”2 in order to carry out electronic commerce. Therefore, the regulatory framework has to be clear, stable and predictable, both to enable e-commerce operators to face all challenges raised by the development of new products and services and to ensure the trust and confidence of consumers in the new electronic supermarket. These are the main objectives of the legislative action of the European Commission3 which has, in recent years, laid the foundations for a consistent setting of the legal scene for electronic commerce in Europe. It is worth recalling that the action of the Commission has been and should be guided by the key principles of the EC Treaty, particularly by the concern for the Internal Market and the enhancement of the circulation of products and services. A clear consequence is that any regulatory intervention of the Commission should be directed to a further harmonization or clarification of the existing rules in order to lift the uncertainties and discrepancies in national policies which might impede the free circulation of electronic goods and services. Other key concerns of the European Commission are to refrain from over-regulating electronic markets and businesses and to remain open to a self-regulatory approach and alternative dispute resolution. This last guideline is particularly followed in the recent Draft Directive on electronic commerce4 .


First Monday ◽  
2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Panayiota Tsatsou

This article provides a critical examination of telecommunications regulation in the EU and argues for the need for change along the lines of subsidiarity and mediation. This discussion is particularly timely, as the European Commission is working on a new telecommunications regulatory framework, with the lessons and failures of the past appearing more critical than ever. In this context, the article points to the debate between national heterogeneity and shared vision in the European Information Society and it proposes a shift of the culture and procedures dominating the formal EU regulation. It brings to the fore the potential for the tension between national particularities and EU regulation to be resolved by applying subsidiarity along with existing regulatory tools and mediation via the enforcement of mediating networks and the establishment of institutions that increase the accountability of EU regulation on telecommunications.


Significance The EP's move gives parliamentary backing to the effort to develop common EU drone rules. The report advanced nothing novel, but will both encourage and put pressure on the European Commission to act. EU agreement on regulations governing drone use in controlled airspace and for commercial purposes would be a key step in expanding drone construction and services. Impacts The emergence of a comprehensive regulatory framework will trigger the full commercialisation of drone operations. The EP report will increase pressure on the European Commission and EU states to find funding to support drone technological development. The EU will seek to establish enough of a common regime to encourage development without so much 'red tape' as to deter investment. Regulators must also balance safety and privacy concerns against industry pressure to allow wider exploitation of the technology. Achieving the international 2028 target for full airspace integration will require resolution of several technological issues.


Significance The European Commission is reviewing the EU regulatory framework for telecoms. In reforming the framework, and adjudicating on current telecoms mergers, policymakers face a tension between two priorities: promoting international competitiveness and investment, which generally entails market consolidation and incumbent power; and maintaining competition in national markets, which typically involves liberalisation and tough antitrust policies. Impacts With Deutsche Telekom becoming BT's largest shareholder as a result of the latter's EE acquisition, closer ties are likely in coming years. A full takeover is a possibility after the lapse of the three-year restriction on Deutsche Telekom increasing its 12% BT stake. This would require a shift in stance from the EU competition authorities, given their misgivings over more modest telecoms concentrations.


Author(s):  
Pieter Van Cleynenbreugel

On 15 December 2020, the European Commission presented its long-anticipated Digital Services and Digital Market Acts proposals. If and when adopted, those proposals would put in place a more stringent regulatory framework ensuring coordinated oversight over the online platform services and digital markets. They would also enhance EU coordinated and direct enforcement in the digital economy, by streamlining the organization and sanctioning powers of national administrative bodies and granting the European Commission far-reaching market supervision and enforcement powers. This legal development article analyses both Acts and calls on the EU legislator to pay sufficient attention to ensuring the feasibility of new regulatory obligations and to foreseeing better procedural safeguards accompanying Commission direct enforcement practices.


Info ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Cave ◽  
Tony Shortall

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to consider circumstances when technological neutrality in fixed broadband (according firms the power to determine technological choices untrammelled by regulation or the operation of specific incentives) should be adopted. Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews the likely effect of such a policy on the competitive structure of fixed broadband markets, taking four case studies as examples. Findings – The paper finds that choices made by broadband firms with respect to the adoption of fibre to the home versus fibre to the premise, the use of vectoring and the variant of fibre to the home adopted (point to point or point to multipoint) can have a significant effect on the nature of access products which can be provided and thus in the market structure of fixed broadband markets. Access providers can, thus, abridge or foreclose competition in downstream markets. Accordingly, regulators may decide to seek to influence such technological choices to promote competition. But this should be done carefully. Originality/value – These issues are part of the on-going debate concerning the revision of the European regulatory framework for electronic communications services.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 211
Author(s):  
Jonida Gjika

Approximation of national legislation in the sector of electronic communications services as well as in the sector of postal services by the acquis communautaire of the EU and harmonization with the policy sector and mid-term strategies for the development of networks and electronic communications services and postal services constitute the first steps and important for inclusion and consideration of universal service in the two respective sectors, the electronic communications and postal services. The next important stage is their implementation in practice for defining the elements of universal service in both sectors, to assess their national circumstances, to identify the social groups and different categories of who should be the beneficiaries of universal service respective by sector considering a set of principles concerning the necessity of their endurance by all users in financial terms,regardless of their geographic location, have access to the services offered and in this regard, the need to be cost-oriented evaluating and monitoring their principles for the fees to be the same for the same services and the obligation for the provider / providers of universal service that the respective services together with their charging and non-discriminatory, in order not to harm its competitiveness and development of the postal sector.


2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Vitor Miguel Ribeiro ◽  
Fernando Lobo Pereira ◽  
Rui Gonçalves

<p style='text-indent:20px;'>The 2016–2018 triennium was a period marked by a fierce dispute between the European Commission and Autoridade Nacional de Comunicações, Portugal, on the need to regulate wholesale access prices. While the European Commission defended the imposition of Fiber-To-The-x regulation in non-competitive areas, the Portuguese sectoral regulator argued in favor of the persistence of Fiber-To-The-x deregulation. Following a Game Theory approach, the present study demonstrates that the transition from Fiber-To-The-x deregulation to Fiber-To-The-x regulation should only occur when a given territorial unit becomes a competitive area since the subgame perfect Nash equilibrium captures a regulatory framework optimally characterized by the imposition of active access price deregulation (regulation) in non-competitive (competitive) areas, that is, local administrative units characterized by a weak (strong) degree of vertical spillover, respectively. Meanwhile, ducts access regulation must be permanently imposed throughout the national territory, despite it can be relaxed in competitive areas if the regulator imposes intra-flexibility to establish a monopolistic bottleneck to ensure social welfare maximization. Previous conclusions require to introduce both facility-based and service-based competition at the entry stage as well as active and passive obligations at the regulation stage in a multi-stage game with complete information. The present analysis legitimizes the emergence of a new optimization theory in the telecommunications literature, whose modus operandi is contrary to (coincident with) the ladder of investment theory in non-competitive (competitive) areas, respectively. Differently from the view sustained by the ladder of investment theory, which defends that a short-term regulatory touch combined with long-term market deregulation is a socially optimal strategy, the new theory confirms that a regulatory intervention is socially desirable only in the long run. The conceptual refinement is meticulously explained and labeled as the <i>theory of creative creation</i> because, differently from the Schumpeterian gale of creative destruction, whose processes of industrial mutation are permanently market-driven by assumption, a period of regulatory holidays followed by successive regulatory interventions dependent on the degree of vertical spillover observed in the telecommunications industry can effectively promote investment realization that continuously revolutionizes the market structure from within, incessantly destroying the old technology. The theory of creative creation reflects the regulatory framework currently in force in the Portuguese Telecommunications Industry.</p>


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