| Commissioner Reding Breakfast Policy Brief – stock taking - 03/10/08 |
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Viviane Reding, Information Society and Media Commissioner talked on October 3rd, 2008 at the European Policy Centre (EPC) Breakfast Policy Briefing. Mrs. Reding gave a speech entitled “ICT research and telecoms: Europe's opportunity to lead global competition”, delivering several messages mainly regarding future developments strengthening the ICT sector (namely the importance of research and technological innovation, fostering more competition and prioritising European R&D).
Commissioner Reding stressed that European telecom market remains fragmented, which means that business opportunities resulting from innovations are being slowed down by regulatory uncertainty and lack of Europeanwide scale. Mrs. Reding mentioned the European Commission proposals to the European Parliament and the Council of the EU for the review of the EU Regulatory framework for electronic comunication networks and services (Telecom Package) as a solution for this problem. According to Mrs. Reding the proposed new Body of European Regulators in Telecoms (BERT) is “meant to create a centre of excellence at EU level in close cooperation with the national regulators and with the Commission. It will enable ecommunications services to be offered and used under similar conditions so that we can create a level playing field in Europe. This is particularly important for providers of cross-border ecommunications and IT services, as well as for all those companies that want to do business across Europe, for which they need seamless business services.” Mrs. Reding opinion is that in the field of radio spectrum “the need for a single market is most obvious”. In her opinion, the fragmentation of the European regulatory system as well as spectrum itself results in a number of national oligopolies, which are protecting their market shares. Commissioner Reding related to studies showing that the benefits from the digital dividend for TVs could deliver billions of euros of extra growth. She proposed to give 50% of the gains back to the broadcasters to experiment with HDTV or Mobile TV and use the other 50% for innovative broadband such as bringing the high speed internet to all Europeans to cover all the white spots where there is no fast internet Additionally, Mrs. Reding briefly summarized achievements in Europe’s telecommunication sector, saying that European standards for mobile communications continue to dominate and expand with more than 290 million subscribers worldwide, in over 220 networks, operating in more than 90 countries with the European standard. She recalled her decision to support DVB-H as the European standard.
Next steps: To access Commissioner Reding’s speech please click here.
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