The EU gets a telecoms regulation bureaucracy

THE EUROPEAN UNION has formed the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (Berec), which is set to help deal with the increasingly complicated pan-European telecoms industry.

The creation of the body was originally proposed by EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding back in 2007 and is made up of the telecoms regulators from the 27 EU countries with the aim of helping aggregate the €351 billion EU telecoms industry into a single market.

"The establishment of the EU telecoms regulator is an important milestone for telecoms in Europe," said Reding.

"The new body will help national telecoms regulators and the European Commission to provide consistent rules and competitive conditions across the EU. This will boost European telecoms services, which are evolving rapidly in areas like mobile internet and can become a major driver of economic recovery in Europe."

Berec replaces the existing European Regulators Group and will give important expert opinions on the functioning of the telecoms market in the EU as well as advice and support for the independent work of national telecoms regulators, especially when it comes to regulatory decisions with cross-border dealings.

The move was welcomed by UK communications watchdog Ofcom.

"Berec establishes authority in the group of national regulators, working together to the common goal of serving the interests of consumers and the communications sector as a whole," said Ed Richards, Ofcom's chief executive."Berec also has an important responsibility to act as an authoritative and independent adviser to the Commission and the European Parliament on regulatory matters."

Members of Berec met for the first time yesterday in Brussels to elect a chairman and vice chairmen, who will serve a 12-month term and will likely focus initially on topics such as Next Generation Access, Net Neutrality, Universal Service Obligations and the functional separation of local and backhaul network access. µ