Firstly, she underlined the importance of having one single market approach in Europe’s telecommunication sector. As she explained, Europe is still fragmented into 27 regulatory systems in fields like the airwaves which “by definition do not know national borders”. She expressed the need to set up wireless services that cross national borders in Europe, even though she recognizes that spectrum is a national resource and each Member State (MS) controls access to spectrum.

Mrs. Reding also talked about the regulatory approaches in the European field. She stressed the need for more coordinated and coherent approaches to the regulatory framework, highlighting the insufficiency of non-binding European Commission’s (EC) guidelines and recommendations. Talking in particular of the European Regulators Group (ERG), she stated that this group is not consistent, in regulatory terms, with the single telecoms market approach. As she explained, ERG has a weak foundation in European law, operates under a culture of consensus (inclined to a lowest denominator output) and does not have its own resources (minimum staff). Exposing these arguments, Mrs. Reding proposed the reorganisation of ERG into an independent Community body, which can guarantee transparency for its members. Moreover, in order to guarantee equality among the MS and to avoid credibility questions raised by national financing, Mrs. Reding proposed that ERG should be exclusively financed by the European Union’s (EU) budget.

Additionally, Mrs. Reding clearly rejected the idea of an enforced Independent Regulators Group (IRG) because of its private nature. As she explained, the coordination of the work of public authorities “entrusted with public tasks, cannot work by means of a private law organization”. She favoured the idea that telecoms regulation should be a public task, which could guarantee credibility at EU level through an independent body.

Mrs. Reding also stated that the reorganisation of ERG should be coupled with the reinforcement of the "Article 7" consistency procedure between national regulators and the EC. In other words she underlined the need for binding (for the national authorities) decisions taken by the new regulatory body in accordance with the EC.

Finally, Mrs. Reding asked for more ambition as for spectrum management:  “What we can do is to create a situation where a company is never protected from competition and where every company has the same access to the market also when it comes to spectrum. This could become a powerful driver for investment into wireless services and enhance the free movement of services in the EU”.

Next steps:
- Deadline for tabling amendments for the EP: September 17th, 2008 (at noon)
- Vote in EP Plenary: September 24th, 2008, in Brussels
- Decision of the Council of the EU: November 27th, 2008

To access Commissioner Reding’s speech, please click here.