Committee on Industry, Research and Energy Ordinary meeting
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ITRE European Parliament
Follow its sittingsMarko Mišmaš
The existing framework already contains built-in simplification mechanisms. Market reviews allow obligations to be withdrawn where competition develops and regulatory intervention is no longer justified. At the same time, the framework preserves the possibility to act where market power or barriers to competition remain. Rather than limiting the availability of ex-ante regulation, BEREC supports simplifying procedures, improving consistency of methodologies and ensuring the regulatory intervention remain focused on clearly identified competition problems. So BEREC believes that ex-ante remedies continue to be driven by market analysis and tailored to the specific competition problem identified, taking into the account national and, where relevant, local market conditions.
The DNA risks making ex-ante regulation more rigid and more centralized by prescribing how remedies should be applied. So BEREC considers that greater consistency across Europe can be achieved throughout a common guidance and regulatory best practices, rather than throughout the prescriptive one-size-fits-for-all solution. So BEREC is also convinced that the harmonized wholesale access product is not convinced that harmonized access wholesale product would deliver significant benefits. Given the diversity of network architecture and market conditions across the Europe, such products would be complex to define, costly to implement and likely to have a limited practical use. So instead, harmonized access product could remain available as one option within the NRA toolbox, but they should not automatically take precedence over the other access remedies.
In short, effective regulation requires flexibility. Remedies should follow the competition problem identified in the market, not the predefined regulatory model. Harmonized access products can be useful tool, but they should remain one option among the several rather than becoming a default solution across the Europe.
Symmetrical regulation is an important tool for promoting fiber deployment and efficient infrastructure use. Rather than creating additional exemptions and administrative burdens, the framework should give the NRAs the flexibility to intervene where the bottlenecks persist and where intervention is proportional and justified. In many areas, particularly inside the buildings, infrastructure competition is simply not realistic. In those cases, symmetric cases can often be a most efficient way to promote competition, fiber take-up and consumer choice. In short, this is what I wanted to present here today.
I hope the message were messages were clear and of course I remain available for any question questions that may appear. Thank you.
Christophe Grudler
Merci beaucoup Monsieur Michmash, il y aura des questions à la fin, ne vous inquiétez pas par rapport à ça. Monsieur Alexandre de Streel, je vous donne la parole, vous êtes directeur académique du CER et professeur de droit européen à l'Université de Namur.
Alexandre de Streel
Merci beaucoup Monsieur le Président et merci beaucoup for this invitation at this important hearing. If I were to summarize what should guide the Digital Network Act in a single image, I would use the metaphor of what should be the real DNA, you know, because I think it's interesting to speak about the DNA and the DNA as the molecule, of course the fundamental molecule, the real DNA of Europe, what it should be. And I think it should be a double helix with sovereignty as the ladder and competitiveness as the rung, you know. Sovereignty require the ability and the incentive to invest. Competitiveness require sustainable competition, efficiency and innovation.
I don't think that you can have competitiveness without competition, you know. So, this double helix for me has four implication for your work today. The first implication is that the DNA, sorry, the DNA that you are building should be simple, predictable and pro-innovation. And I'm very happy that your rapporteur often mention those three element of what he wants to see as the DNA. So let give let me give me four suggestion in that regard.
Regarding spectrum, I think the Commission proposal goes in the very right direction because Europe needs a more long-term approach. Longer license duration provide greater regulatory certainty and strengthen incentive to invest. But at the same times, of course, and I think that's also in the Commission proposal, the law should ensure that spectrum is used effectively and contribute to innovation and network deployment.
Sorry, just a second, you need to slow down because for interpretation it will be easier. Thank you. But respect your time.
Speaker 6
Oh yeah, but I mean there is a trade-off as always in life, you know. Right, sorry for and thanks a lot for the interpretation. I'm sorry, I'm used to speak too quick, my student always told me that. So, on spectrum. On access regulation, I think access regulation should really be laser-focused on persistent local bottleneck.
And the DNA should define what is bottleneck, what is the test for a bottleneck. Third, on net neutrality. Net neutrality is a very important principle of the Europe on which we should be very proud of. But at the same times, net neutrality rule should not impede innovation and innovative services in 5G and tomorrow in 6G. So I think some improvement can be done there.
Alexandre de Streel
We should recognize that Europe, and that's a good thing, has improved quite a lot over the year, the horizontal consumer protection. I mean, the EU consumer acquis has been improved quite a lot, and therefore I think there are a lot of overlapping, as the previous speaker was saying, that could be removed in the DNA. So that's the first point. The second point regard the fact that the DNA and also the cybersecurity law, you know, the sister law, if you can say so, should not increase, I think, the cost of operating network without considering its impact on investment ability. So this is, I think, particularly relevant where operator could, according to the Commission proposal, they could be required to, on the one hand, remove high-risk vendor equipment from their network, or, on the other hand, to accelerate the decommissioning of legacy copper network.
Speaker 6
And finally, for this law which should be simple, predictable and pro-innovation, regarding consumer protection.
Alexandre de Streel
I think when public policy choice generate such a cost, and it may be justified, my point is not it's not justified, it may be justified, but those costs should be minimized with policy which are evidence-based and and at the maximum use market forces, and also compensation mechanism should be established, just as it is already the case for the net cost which is associated with universal service obligation. Okay, that's the second point. Third point, I think the DNA should actively and very actively stimulate the internal market when it can be beneficial, but the DNA should not artificially create an internal market when there are few cross-country economies of scale and scope. So in satellite, in satellite, I think a stronger European approach is justified as the satellite services are inherently cross-border. And so thus there is a very strong case for a more centralized management of the satellite spectrum, and this management should strengthen European competitiveness and strategic autonomy, the double helix.
But in contrast to the satellite, I think fixed network to a large extent and mobile networks to some extent remain rooted in local infrastructures. And therefore, you know, the cross-country economies of scale and scope are probably smaller for fixed and mobile than for satellite. And therefore, in those sector, I think the objective should not be to manufacture a single market from Brussels or from Strasbourg with some EU access product. Rather, the European framework, the DNA, should ensure that national regulatory regime are efficient, predictable, and supportive of sustainable competition and long-term investment. Okay, and the last point, the fourth point, which is probably the most tricky one because it relate to the governance and the the role of the institution, and by experience I know that this in general are the most contested issue.
But I would say that the proposal that the Commission has to centralize additional power to itself should be approached with caution. Because, and that's what I said previously, most of the telecom network, fixed clearly local to a large extent, remain fundamentally local. And they are very different from digital services. I don't think that what we have done for digital services, which is a lot of centralization in terms of supervision, and I think that was justified because those digital services travel across country, but that's not the case of network, that's not the case of network. And so therefore national authority should continue to play an essential role.
Now, this centralization issue become even more delicate as the Commission is increasingly acting as a geopolitical body, and for good reason, because the world has become what it has become. But therefore, there is for that reason any extension of the central power to the Commission should be accompanied by robust safeguard to ensure legal predictability. I think if we if we are going in that direction, I think then the DNA could ensure competitiveness and sovereignty, which I think should remain our compasses.
Christophe Grudler
Merci, Monsieur Destrell. La parole est maintenant à Madame Anna Pisarkiewicz, qui est maître de conférences à l'Institut universitaire européen. The floor is yours.
Anna Pisarkiewicz
Merci beaucoup, Chair, honorable members of the Parliament. It's a great pleasure for me to be here today and I very much thank you for the invitation. Let me begin with a short retrospect. Thirty years ago, regulation focused on former monopolies, copper bottlenecks, and symmetric traffic flowing mainly among dispersed users. There were no hyperscalers, no gatekeepers, streaming giants, no frontier AI models or cloud dependencies of the kind we see today.
We regulated the sector we had and most of that regulation was justified. But regulation is often path-dependent, history-driven, when it should be forward-looking. The DNA looks forward in important ways. My concern is that this lens is applied unevenly. So my question today is, where does the DNA stand in terms of simplification, competitiveness, and technological sovereignty?
Simplification. There is a legitimate case for it: merging instruments, simplifying reporting, clarifying institutional roles. But consolidating texts is not the same as reducing regulatory burden. A simplified text can preserve all distortions, duplicate horizontal rules, and even add procedures to manage the consequences of earlier over-regulation. So let me give some examples.
The first is net neutrality. The distortion the DNA addresses, but not yet effectively enough. Its hard core must remain: no blocking, no throttling, no discrimination undermining media pluralism, user choice, or freedom of expression. However, our current regime is unidirectional. It restricts how operators may differentiate traffic, while the largest content providers are still treated as ordinary users and end users in need of protection.
The Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act discipline gatekeepers, but neither addresses the network-platform relationship itself. The DNA's proposed conciliation mechanism is revealing. A voluntary forum has clear limits: where bargaining power is asymmetric, incentives misaligned, or rules uncertain, it risks being ineffective. At worst, it becomes a procedural substitute for substantive simplification, managing tensions in the existing framework rather than resolving the proportionality problem at its source. This Parliament is already struggling with it.
The IMCO draft opinion would extend net neutrality duties to content providers themselves, allow operators to differentiate by quality of service, and have BEREC clarify rules on specialized services. These are useful signals, but they remain partial fixes within the old structure. Let me be clear: I am not calling for repeal of net neutrality, but simply for a disciplined re-examination of the regime's underlying objectives in the ecosystem we now have. This means that we should avoid framing the question dogmatically and in binary terms, but ask: what is the precise harm, what is the proportionate tool, and whether empowered users and effective competition could protect the same values better than broad ex-ante prohibitions from another era? Also, the economics of net neutrality are subtle.
Hence, the analysis could consider distinguishing between fixed and mobile networks, since the impact of net neutrality obligations may differ in each. The second example is regulatory burden and the coexistence of horizontal and sector-specific regulation.
Speaker 9
In cybersecurity and resilience, it can create unrealistic, disproportionate and inconsistent obligations. Consider Article 5 of the proposal. In data protection, the interaction between the GDPR, ePrivacy and other rules can fragment compliance, restrict useful data-driven services and create asymmetries with actors outside the electronic communications framework. Here, the DNA should include a cumulative burden test. For every sector-specific obligation, the legislator should ask: is the interest already sufficiently protected by horizontal law?
If yes, the sector-specific rule should be repealed, narrowed or sunsetted. If it remains, the reason should be explicit. The DSA Agora model may be useful here, not as another portal for undertakings, but as an institutional template for secure information sharing among authorities instead of repeatedly asking firms for same data. This is proportionality in practice, it is also regulatory coherence. A brief word on access.
Consider giving priority to symmetric regulation through the Gigabit Infrastructure Act and the DNA symmetric access provisions and treating asymmetric SMP-based remedies as a safety net only. Let me turn to competitiveness. Here, the test is not whether any single rule is fatal. What matters is cumulative regulatory burden, not each instrument assessed in isolation. A framework can look reasonably rule-by-rule, but in aggregate still weigh far more heavily on European operators than on the global platforms using their networks.
And it is that asymmetry more than any single provision that leaves the ecosystem unbalanced. Finally, technological sovereignty. If networks are the infrastructure on which AI, cloud, cybersecurity and industrial digitalization depend, then telecom operators cannot be treated only as regulated addressees, consulted on spectrum, coverage obligations or compliance. They must be part of the strategic conversation on how Europe builds a more balanced digital ecosystem. That strategic approach must also reflect geopolitics.
The war in Ukraine and an unstable security environment make spectrum coordination at the Union's external borders strategic. The Commission should have a stronger mandate to negotiate with third countries where national solutions are inefficient. So to conclude, Europe needs neither dogmatic deregulation nor dogmatic preservation of every inherited rule. Hence we should regulate proportionately and by function rather than by legacy sector, weigh the cumulative regulatory burden rather than isolated instruments, and have both the humility and courage to legislate for the ecosystem we actually have today. Thank you.
Christophe Grudler
Merci Madame Pisarkiewicz, et sans plus tarder, je donne la parole à notre dernier speaker, Monsieur Peter Alexiadis, expert en droit de la concurrence et en régularisation des télécommunications.
Peter Alexiadis
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you for inviting me, and many thanks also to the 13th god of Olympus, the god of air conditioning. Thank heavens he's with us today. I tend to agree with many of the comments already made, but I will take a slightly different approach. My concern is not that there are many bad things in the DNA, but there are many disjointed things in the DNA.
It is not in my mind a holistic document. It has been drafted by many people dealing with specialist topics who either have not had the time or the inclination to join the different policy instruments. And I will take you through what I think are some of my major concerns. I'm not surprised that we have ended up like this because if you have the four major sort of push-pull factors, A, the Draghi shopping list,
B, very, very effective lobbying by incumbent operators, three, a tendency towards rash, sometimes geopolitical reactions, and B, and fourthly, a tendency over the last few years for encroachment of centralized regulatory powers. So let's look at seven points where I think the policies don't match. The first one, mergers versus regulation.
The background music we're hearing is that the merger regime is going to be liberalized, made more soft to allow companies to have higher concentration. What we find in the DNA, though, is less access regulation. And I implore you, the idea that you can have more concentration and less regulation makes absolutely no sense when it comes to access. If you are going to give with one hand the ability to have higher concentration, you have to ensure that competitiveness works and you have more hard-hitting access regulation. To presume that you can lower both standards is folly.
I think that's really quite clear and the DNA is quite clear. It presumes no mobile access. It presumes minimal fixed access through the SMP route. And it presumes fixed rigid access rules. Let me go to my second point, harmonization against European markets.
Um, it there's a big difference between saying that we are have introducing more harmonization and saying that we are creating European markets. One does not lead to the other. There are many instances all over Europe where companies are pan-European in their physical scope, but not pan-not servicing pan-European markets. They service German markets, French markets, Greek markets, Portuguese markets. And we should not confuse those.
And we must not confuse the fact that networks are national. They're national and they're re-they're local. Services are potentially pan-European. Absolutely. We should focus on services if we want to create pan-European markets.
And how do we get pan-European markets through services? We have access obligations which bite at the national level, which allow pan-European service provision. Don't pretend otherwise. And we go back to the concentration point. If concentration is going to be internal to member states, there's no nexus between that and pan-European operators.
Do not be deluded that that is a case. There is no magic line between the two. Simplification is a good thing. But what are we simplifying? Many of the things we're simplifying are cutting costs.
And that's a great thing that the Commission has introduced, passporting, etc., etc. But we have to ask ourselves, is this just helping people who have already sunk costs to be pan-European in presence? So it doesn't really make that much difference. Is it going to help anybody new coming into the market?
And if it does, even better. But if it doesn't, you're already supporting a group of operators that have already sunk their costs. Fixed access standard product is being proposed. But we don't have a theory of harm for why we should give it and where it should be given. So again, that's not a pan-European solution.
It's a common harmonized approach, but it doesn't create European markets. And last but not least, given the role of the Parliament in fostering roaming and so forth, we do have a potential huge pan-European market. It's called the Internet of Things. But we won't get it unless we have access in the mobile sector. That's the European market.
It's there staring us in the face. Okay, third point. Do we need the same instrument to cover everything? Are we elevating security too high in the DNA? Why do I ask that?
You might say security, mother's milk. Security, however, is not sovereignty. What Europe needs is sovereignty. We're already covering security through two directives. Let's make them better.
Let's not put security at the heart of the DNA so that telecoms operators can do what digital operators do to regulators, which is namely to say, I'm respecting the GDPR, therefore please don't impose interoperability obligations on me. All the telecom operators will say is, I'm satisfying security standards, don't impose any access standards on me. That's going to happen. It's not a wild prediction. It's going to happen.
Do we want that? If we want to cut back and simplify, do we need to add more consumer protection in the DNA or should we just drop it all or part of it at least into the Digital Fairness Act? Let's deal with the fairness aspects of the digital world all together. Or let's give more powers to NRAs just to look at consumer problems. Fourthly, economic presumptions.
Apparently we're lagging behind China, a market economy. No, it's not. Let's not compare ourselves to China. We're lagging behind America. We're not.
Our performance in telecoms markets is very, very good. Telcos are suffering. No, they're not, not all of them. Digital markets are suffering in America, but not telcos markets. Capex figures are low.
Look at post-2024 figures and you'll see a different story. Look at the benefits of technology and you'll understand why capex figures might be low. The problem is demand. There is no demand from European consumers for expensive broadband and standalone 5G products. That is not something that can be solved by regulation.
Okay, and let's understand that. There are no incentives for incumbent operators to go up the value chain to get into the Eurostack. That's what we should be trying to do, but not through the DNA. Legal issues, I won't dwell on this. Regulation, putting this legislation in the form of a regulation creates perverse outcomes.
It means that you have to be very, very exact in certain areas and very fluid in others because you can't predict what's going to happen. That is potentially highly problematic. This for me looks and reads like a directive, but it's dressed up like a regulation. Copper switch-off. If it's that important, why wait till 2035?
If it's that important, how come our own predictions say that most member states are nearly there already? If it's that important, why challenge the Charter of Human Rights and the Treaty, which gives the rights to property to member states?
I think that's highly problematic and very risky. Appeals. The Commission is making the burden easier on NRAs to defend themselves. To what end? They've taken away all their powers on the SMP front.
So they're giving with one hand but taking everything away with the other. The parties covered. Yes, we should have OTT operators covered, but should they be regulated? That's a political choice. Should all private networks be regulated?
On the current drafting, it looks as if they will. Is that simplification? Last point, spectrum policy. I'll glint over, I don't agree with unlimited duration of licenses if there is no quid pro quo. Unlimited duration if you have access.
Unlimited duration if it can be taken away. Unlimited duration with no auctions when auctions are a good means of valuing the value of of the license is important. And last but not least, governance. More responsibilities to NRAs, less power to NRAs. Is that is that what we want for networks which are local?
Encroachment into their sovereignty at national level and encroachment into local problem-solving issues. Let's remember also that the Commission proposes to have power over over remedies. Veto power. The reason we didn't have that in the original regulatory framework was because no one knew what the right remedy would be and you'd judge it in particular circumstances. Pretending that we now know the perfect remedy is folly again, it depends on the national network circumstances.
So, in conclusion, we have a grand buffet approach. But as with all grand buffet, if we eat too much, we might get sick. Thank you.
Christophe Grudler
Merci. Merci à vous. Merci à l'ensemble de nos quatre intervenants pour la qualité de leurs interventions. Vous allez maintenant écouter avec nous le rapporteur et les shadow rapporteurs du texte et après vous aurez l'occasion d'intervenir à nouveau pour faire vos commentaires. Alors tout d'abord, on va écouter donc le premier tour, le rapporteur et les shadow rapporteurs.
Mais la parole est tout d'abord au rapporteur en chef du Digital Networks Act, Monsieur Michał Kobosko du groupe Renew. The floor is yours.
Michał Kobosko
Thank you, Chair, and I understand I just have two minutes. Okay, what can we do? So let me just start by thanking our experts for accepting our invitation and being here today. Let me thank Mr. Mishmash, Professor de Streel, Professor Pisarkiewicz, and Professor Alexiadis for being here and sharing your rich comments, remarks. I believe your comments also illustrate how broad area we are trying to cover, how big is the number of the real challenges that we are facing to make European connectivity a better system, securing connectivity for all of us and securing the growth and development of European players versus players from other continents.
So yes, you mentioned this already while working on the DNA, we do believe there are three key pillars that we need to concentrate and these are this is related to the simplification of rules, harmonization of rules as well as creating real tangible incentives for European players to increase their investments for the future. This is this is our core thinking here, but here's my time is very limited. Let me just jump to three questions that I have. First one starting with Professor Alexiadis, I want to ask you what would you do, what would be your concrete, very concrete solutions to improve pan-European competition in mobile sector?
How would you do that? Mobile market is obviously highly deregulated now. Second question to Mr. Mischmasch, I want to stop by the last moment you mentioned in your statement, that is the universal service obligation. In BEREC's opinion, you suggest to bring more flexibility to Member States and reintroduce the option of industry sharing mechanisms. Right now, according to the Commission's proposal, only public funding would be allowed to finance this policy, but industry sharing only exists in a few countries.
The designation process is cumbersome and the burden is only put on the telecom operators. How would you suggest to reform this process so it can be much more efficient? Do you think it could be fair that other industry players beyond telecom operators, for example, interpersonal communication services, OTTs, are also part of this burden sharing? And thirdly, to Professor Pisarkiewicz on the net neutrality. You mentioned net neutrality is one of the areas where simplification can be introduced without harming net neutrality principle.
I would be interested to hear even more concrete recommendations on this matter. What do you think would make the biggest sense? Should we make allowed reasonable traffic management measures more flexible or maybe keep the net neutrality rules only in relation to consumers? And when it comes to specialized services, is it smart that optimization is such an important element of the assessment whether specialized services allowed? One may argue that it forces the operators to craft specialized service for one concrete service or a particular company.
Shouldn't we rather have specialized services for certain categories of traffic, for example, social media, music, banking or streaming allowed when proven that it doesn't cause a detriment to general interest access? Thanks so much.
Speaker 10
Thank you, Mr. Jakobiak. Now the floor is to Ms. Pilar del Castillo Vera for EPP.
Pilar del Castillo Vera
How many, how much time do we have? Two minutes as well? Okay, thank you. Well, first, thank you to you all. I think you very properly rise the many different problems that is in the dossier and I would say that all in all you are quite convergence.
I don't see big differences among the different approaches, approaches you have tell about us. Well, I think the two main point or three main point that we will have in this dossier in terms of Parliament, it is not exactly copper, it is not exactly the voluntary conciliation mechanism because here we very much agree that the difficulties for going further what Commission has proposed is my opinion, of course, I mean, no doubt that is the Commission the one that has to come with different ways of going on because do it in Parliament it seems that we don't have the tools necessary for develop further this proposal. But it is, I would tell you, single market. I fully agree with you, we don't have a single market, we cannot create a single market by law and we are not in the process of developing a single market. Then you can push from legislation, it is not the case.
The market it is fragmented, it is national markets. And then things like the single passport and the harmonized wholesale access product, it is, you know, very difficult to think about that just put it in the scenario this proposals you will find the magic solution and then we have appear the single market or to some extent.
This is other question that I have that I think I am very interested in is the net neutrality because net neutrality can be one of the points. I think the net neutrality should be taken as it is in terms of the core of the design, but in the same manner that when you look at other actors, let's say the platforms, they have developed. Initially they were for distribution, they were for searchers, you know, to get information and so and so forth, but now they are in all sectors. In that sense, we cannot deny to the telecom sector that they can develop other kind of businesses. So the B2B means through slicing technologies.
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